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GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 



GHOSTS 
I HAVE SEEN 

AND OTHER PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES 

BY 

VIOLET TWEEDALE 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 






Copyright, 1919, by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 



All rights reserved 



OtC -8 1919 



©CI.A536886 



^ 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGB 

I ** Silk Dress " and " Rumpus "... i 

II The Ghost of Broughton Hall ... 14 

III Curious Psychic Experiences . • • 33 

IV East End Days and Nights .... 48 
V The Man in the Marylebone Road . . 66 

VI The Ghost of Prince Charlie ... 74 

VII Pilgrims and Strangers 91 

VIII Some Strange Events 98 

IX Pompey AND the Duchess 114 

X The Invisible Hands 124 

XI Dawns 133 

XII Peacock's Feathers — The Skeleton 

Hand at Monte Carlo 146 

XIII I Commit Murder 157 

XIV The Angel of Lourdes 175 

XV The Wraith of the Army Gentleman . 184 

XVI An Austrian Adventure 197 

XVII Across the Threshold 211 

XVIII Haunted Rooms 221 

XIX " The New Jeanne D'Arc " . . . .241 

XX Haunted Houses — " Castel A Mare " . 251 

XXI The Sequel 263 

XXII The Haunted Lodge 276 

XXIII Auras 291 

XXIV Adieu 307 



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GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 



GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

CHAPTER I 

" SILK DRESS " AND " RUMPUS " 

FROM the terrible conditions of the present I 
have turned back to the past, for a little joy 
and a great deliverance. 
In the present one lives no longer from day to day, 
but from hour to hour, and even a fleeting memory 
of the joys that are no more refreshes the soul — 
wearied, and fainting with a pallid anxiety that wraith- 
like envelops the whole being in a thrall of sadness. 

To-day I heard music which I had known and loved 
in the happy, careless long ago, and whilst I was lost 
in a dream of half-forgotten bliss I smelt the fragrance 
of mimosa flower. I cannot describe the sensations 
of joy that thrilled through my whole being. An 
involuntary moving of the spirit, an emergence into 
a dream world, described by the Greeks as "ecstasy." 
The music fashioned the invisible link, and I was 
back again on a hillside where the mimosa grew in 
native abundance. Now, one thinks of France only 
as a hideous battle plain, but memory, the true dis- 
pensator of time, is never bound by years. She keeps 
ever fresh, in glowing colors, those ideal moments 
that gather up the utter joys of life into one divine 
sheaf of memory. 



2 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

It is not only for its great uses that we must have 
memory, but for its joys. It rends the gray veil 
shrouding present existence, and shows us life as what 
it really is. A phantasmagoria of wonder, wrapped 
in mystery. 

The day of miracles is not past, it never will be 
past, but if you want miracles you must have the power 
of seeing them. 

I have written in this book of the miracles I have 
seen. Some of them any one can see, others are re- 
served for the delectation of the few. 

I have written of strange visitants from other 
realms, and of that vivid illumination which at mo- 
ments lays bare the hidden springs of life, when the 
spirit emerges beyond the limit of human thought, 
and familiar things, beyond the horizon of life, and 
touches a sphere beyond immortality. It is a condi- 
tion that the grave has nothing to do with, a behold- 
ing beyond the frontiers of the soul. 

I have written of the spiritual life, for without this 
spiritual life a palace would be no wider than a tomb. 
The vastness of the spirit world defies description. It 
can choose its own pathways, and any one of these 
long, long roads leading to the great mysteries. 

It is now almost universally acknowledged that 
psychic experiences, of a specific nature, occur at 
certain times to certain people, that are not explicable 
by any known science. Generally, they are experi- 
ences which point to the continuity of the human 
consciousness with a wider spiritual environment, from 
which the normal man is shut off. 

A few such experiences that have come to me I 
record. 

I hope that I have never tried to convince others 



" SILK DRESS " AND " RUMPUS " 3 

of the truth of these experiences. If I have done so 
it has been unconsciously done. I am absolutely- 
persuaded that such phenomena can only become con- 
vincing when personally experienced. Such matters 
ought not to be accepted on hearsay. It is mere folly 
for one woman to attempt to demonstrate to another 
the existence of the human soul. The most that A 
can communicate to B, of any part of her own experi- 
ences, is so much of it as is common to the experiences 
of both. 

I have proved conclusively to my own consciousness 
that I am linked up with a wider consciousness from 
which, at times, such experiences flow in. 

I know my soul to be in touch with a greater soul, 
which at moments enters into communication with me, 
and opens out a vastness which it is impossible to 
translate into words, and which annihilates space and 
time. 

I have had my vision, and I know. Therefore I am 
quite unmoved by criticism or ridicule. 

I believe that what has come to me will come to 
all, and there is no need to hurry the process. We 
are simply a tiny part of a whole, which has neither 
beginning nor end. We live in a universe which is 
infinite in time and space, which has always existed 
in some form, and will go on in some form for ever. 
The discovery of the law of the indestructibility of 
matter has proved this beyond a doubt. 

At some second in time our Universe will be dis- 
solved into new systems, for the life of a solar system 
lasts only a second in eternity, but that need not worry 
us yet. There is lots of time for man to realize his 
soul, and all will doubtless do so at some moment in 
their many earth lives. 



4 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

The classic idea is that the Golden Age lies in the 
past, but the Stoic doctrine of recurring cycles in the 
ages of the world seems to suggest that the Golden 
Age may return. 

There are people to-day who ask, " Is this the end 
of the world?" 

More probably it is the end of an age. The harvest 
may be ripe for the sickle to be thrust in. The opposi- 
tion of good and evil may have reached their fullest 
manifestation. It may be the hour in eternity for a 
complete readjustment of the little ant-hills we call 
great nations. 

We know the rise and fall of nations to be an 
historical fact, apparently based on an immutable law. 
This recurring phenomenon cannot be explained, 
though there are theories. Possibly the true one may 
be found in the failure or compliance to respond to the 
challenge : " Advance to a higher spiritual plane or 
perish." It may be that the right of continuance de- 
pends upon the answer to that challenge. 

What brought about the decline of those mighty 
civilizations whose monuments of antiquity seem to 
mock our pride? What insidious disease brought 
about the fall of Rome? The beauty and inspiration 
of Greece was arrested by some swift decay, and the 
giant temples and Pyramids of Egypt, and the Mounds 
of Mesopotamia, testify to a grandeur far surpassing 
ours. 

In the world's morning time, before the mists began 
to clear, we can trace the rise and fall of a score of 
mighty Empires. From out their present tombs of 
tragic silence arise figures, colossal sculptured figures, 
with faces and forms of commanding power. As- 
syrians, a mighty race, leaving behind whole libraries 



" SILK DRESS » AND " RUMPUS " 5 

of record, chiseled upon indestructible pages. The 
lost arts of three thousand years ago. 

Earlier still the earth resounded to the thunder of 
Xenophon's thousands, and the chariots of Persia 
sweeping after them. Lying deeper still in the shroud 
of antiquity the Pharaohs emerge as mighty conquer- 
ors, and we can dimly discern in the Empire of the 
Chaldeans the movement of a gorgeous civilization, 
and the majestic figures of men versed in mystic, and, 
to us, unknown lore. In Italy, memorials of a refined 
people, who were precursors of Roman power, have 
been found, forms of perfect grace in delicate vases 
and coins of gold and silver. The old Etruscan art is 
traced back to the Assyrians' sculpture. The snowy 
crown of ancient Greece budded and bloomed in the 
mighty halls of Assyria's splendor, hundreds of years 
before Christ. Nb phantom world could furnish a 
mightier or more resplendent host. 

Reading of those proud and mighty civilizations 
brings the simple life of the Nazarene very near to us 
in years, it also shows us how quickly great splendors 
are sanded over by the hands of time. The British 
Museum holds the sculptured records of twenty-five 
hundred years. Whilst the flames, kindled by the 
mob of Christian monks, from the great Alexandrian 
library rose to Heaven, the temple fronts of the Pha- 
raohs, the Pyramids, the Sphinx, loomed out of the 
conflagration. The impotent torches of the fanatics 
were powerless against such imperishable records. 
What of our records? Will these ancient civilizations 
be remembered when the fame of modern nations 
has vanished utterly? Which has the best chance of 
enduring in the future? The paper and pasteboard 
of to-day, or the monuments of stone, to which the 



6 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

Monarchs of bygone Empires entrusted the history of 
their unsurpassed grandeur? 

"If thou hadst known in this thy day, even thou, 
the things which belong to thy peace! but now they 
are hid from thine eyes." 

This is the epitaph written across the tombs of all 
nations now crumbling into dust. 

*' The things which belong to thy peace." The 
things which never die or fade, whose continuity is 
never broken, the Divine seeds that cannot perish, the 
things which are immortal. The winged soul in its 
seon-long pilgrimages through eternity to home. 

I find it easy to write to-day upon psychic subjects, 
for everywhere I discern the dawn of what Conan 
Doyle, in his deeply interesting book, calls " The new 
revelation." 

To one who, for the last forty years, has been im- 
mersed in all branches of occult research, the change 
of view that has come over the world in four years 
is very remarkable. Every one is now interested in 
the human soul, and all that appertains to it. The 
speeding up in the number of psychic experiences com- 
ing to light is enormous. So often now I come across 
" the last man in the world to see or hear anything " 
who has just been accorded a startling experience, and 
the rank skeptic is becoming a thing of the past. 

Whilst sitting in solitude it is interesting to let 
one's thoughts slip back to childhood, and trace the 
present life in the mirror of the old. I discover that 
in the immediate now there is nothing new, but only 
that which has its symbol in the old. I seem to get 
only the much clearer vision of what once was vague 
and cloudy, or wholly unconsidered by the mind of 
youth. 



" SILK DRESS " AND " RUMPUS " 7 

In that garden of memory I can set old happenings 
in a new hght, and measure my slow footprints in the 
age-long journey behind me. Two facts emerge from 
out such musings. Firstly, the journey of my soul 
takes a spiral path, which at intervals brings me face 
to face with the old things that I have learned to 
modernize by dressing in fresh thought forms, as new 
perceptions are won. Perceptions prophetic of the 
greater capacity for attainment when the Divine Power 
is permitted to unfold itself without let or hindrance. 

Secondly, the further on the soul journeys the more 
solitary the road becomes. One by one the old com- 
panion pilgrims drop away. Perhaps it is that on 
that long, lone trail the traveler must be free. 

Very early in my life came the consciousness that 
everywhere about me, in the infinitely above, in the 
infinitely below, permeating heart, mind and soul, is 
life — endless, eternal. 

On this shoreless ocean of existence, without form 
or name, the soul is afloat. Birth and death are the 
tides, the ebb and flow of the ocean of life. The hu- 
man soul is but a ripple on the sea of existence, and 
phenomenal life is but a flash in the eternity of eter- 
nities. All the teeming lives of effort around us, all 
the travail and suffering to which humanity is des- 
tined, are ordained for the great purpose of soul evolu- 
tion. God sets the balance at every grave. That 
which distinguishes every man is the vast dower of 
our nature, eventually the same to all, the passing in- 
cidents of station, fortune, talent, are mere surface 
varieties. 

I find in my mind the existence of something inimi- 
tably beyond mind, doubtless a common experience. 
I do not know what that something is, but it is very 



8 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

real, and it invariably shows me how cribbed, cabined 
and confined this life really is. I cannot even tell 
what it is that confines me. I only know that there 
is a limitless world full of infinite possibilities all 
around me. I seem always to have known this, but 
I cannot grasp it. True, at rare intervals, I catch a 
glimpse through a rift in the clouds, then they close 
again. 

At such moments I experience an ecstasy of heart 
sweet happiness, so marvelously sweet, so pure, so 
near Divine with its deep wordless thoughts of in- 
finite beauty. Such regions are not so much impene- 
trable as ineffable. They are glimpses gained at some 
great altitude, from which I can look down on the 
mortal pageant and behold mysteries in which I take 
no part, but by which I am encircled, as an island, by 
infinity. Such are luminous and splendid moments, 
when the soul beholds the world in its real mystic 
beauty. It is the hour of transfiguration, in which the 
veil drops from the heart and the film from the eyes, 
so that we see life as God means it to be. 

Often, as a mere child, when lying awake in those 
nights, whose stillness have a quality of awe, the 
silence would be broken by weird, barbaric songs which 
wafted a sense of old, wild adventurous life, and in a 
curious quality of mystery I saw violet mountains 
sleeping in sunlight, above a sea of amethyst. Child- 
ish visions, but sacred nights. Very many years 
passed before I understood them. 

On hot velvety nights in June a curious scent of 
smoke would come to me, the measured hollow beating 
of bells, and a tremulous far-away piping. Years 
after, I stood alone one evening on the slopes of Etna, 
amid the pale asphodels and the desolation of tumbling 



" SILK DRESS " AND " RUMPUS " 9 

lava fields, and I heard the pipes of Pan, the reed pipe 
of the herd boy, and linked the past with the present. 
Again, passing through a region where the smoke rose 
from the charcoal burners' fires the scent of an ancient 
memory came vaporing up, the unfamiliar scent that 
puzzled my childhood, and I was away in a flash, to 
wait for the soul to free herself and return from the 
world's edge. 

I had to journey further east before I heard again 
at dawn the ring of camel bells as a caravan broke 
camp, and then I understood the visions of my youth, 
as I listened to the measured hollow beating, and 
watched a strange medley of eastern traffic trail away 
across the desert. 

Sometimes, when the nursery clock seemed to tick 
more loudly than usual, I saw a gigantic water-wheel, 
and behind it massive rocks with the hewn tombs of 
ancient kings, and beyond them lay distant glamorous 
mountains, white sails creeping amid warm purple 
isles, set in a gulf of turquoise. Sometimes I have 
dreamed holy things, and waked to find myself over- 
awed by the sublimity of the vision and the glory of 
the Universe. 

So many of those childish visions I have identified 
in later life, but there is one which eludes me. It is 
a great white road leading to the farther east, and I see 
it drenched in white sunlight. Tinkling mule trains 
pass along it, and I know now it is in some way con- 
nected with Ida that saw ancient Troy, and the Capital 
of Pontus, the seat of Mithridates' Court, and the 
Empire of Trebizond. Some day, who knows, I may 
walk upon it. 

Looking back I can recollect nothing psychic hap- 
pening to me before the age of six. I can fix that 



lo GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

date upon which I became actually aware of the other 
world. It all happened through " Silk dress " and 
" Rumpus." 

I slept in a bed in one corner, and my younger 
brother slept in another corner. The room was large, 
and at the top of a modem, quite ordinary, town 
house. Two flights of stairs ran down to the ground 
floor. " Silk dress " was something we were ex- 
tremely interested in, but I cannot recollect that we 
were ever in the least afraid. 

When we first became aware of " silk dress " I do 
not know, but in looking back across those many years 
I think that in the beginning we must have accepted 
" it " as something or somebody " real." Only after 
several experiences did it dawn upon us that " it " was 
not real. By then we had passed beyond the stage 
when we might have felt fear. After we had gone to 
bed we were left quite alone in the dark, and the 
nurses went down to supper. The younger children 
slept in another room. It was during such periods of 
silence that " silk dress " began its ascent. 

Just as we were dropping off to sleep one of us 
would murmur drowsily, " Here comes silk dress." 
Then we lay quite still, very wide awake again and 
listened intently. 

From far down on the ground floor we heard foot- 
steps quietly and methodically ascending, and the 
rustle of a silk dress. We could hear quite distinctly 
when " it " arrived at the first floor, which was occu- 
pied by our parents, then " it " passed on to the next 
flight of stairs leading to our floor. 

The sound of footsteps and the rustle of the silk 
dress became more and more clearly audible as " it " 
drew ever nearer. We could tell the second at which 



" SILK DRESS " AND " RUMPUS " 1 1 

" it " passed from the last step on to the corridor 
which led past our half -open door. Then there was 
a thrilling moment or two, when the tip-tap of shoes, 
and the swish of silk on the linoleum was quite loud, 
but the footsteps never halted. They always swept 
past the half-closed door, and went on into a small 
room beyond, which was used for storing boxes. 
Then dead silence fell again. 

In those days we never heard the word " ghost " 
mentioned, yet I cannot recollect thinking of " silk 
dress " as anything but a visitor from the other world. 
We talked of " it " freely in the household, but prob- 
ably because we expressed no fear, no one seemed 
in the least interested. On wakeful nights we occu- 
pied ourselves in waiting for " it," and on wet nights 
we could not hear " it " clearly because the rain pat- 
tered so loudly on a large skylight outside our door. 
What interested us enormously was the fact that we 
never heard " it " descend again. How " it " got 
down in order to mount once more was a great puz- 
zle. 

" Rumpus " was quite another matter, quite another 
order of manifestation. " Rumpus " always began 
when we were sound asleep, and " Rumpus " always 
wide awakened us. " They " came at longer intervals, 
about every ten days, whilst " it " came on most nights. 
During the summer mornings in the North, when one 
could often read a book in the light of a one a. m. 
dawn, " they " were very interesting, because when 
" their " hour, five a. m., arrived the room was flooded 
with sunshine. In winter mornings, when the room 
was in black darkness, we were merely bored, and 
cross at being roused, and we simply lay still and en- 
dured " them " till they had quite finished. But in the 



12 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

summer mornings we always sat up in bed and intently 
watched something we never saw. 

When " Rumpus " roused us brusquely from our 
slumbers it was by means of a demoniac pandemonium. 
The room was in possession of " them," and " they " 
crashed, and banged, and tossed about the furniture 
in the most reckless fashion. Crash went the ward- 
robe, bang went one chair after another, hurtling 
across the room. Crash went wardrobe back into its 
place again, clang went the fire-irons. Rushing 
collisions, and rappings on the window-panes, thuds 
on the floor, rattlings and clatter ings of crockery, jing- 
ling of brass, creakings and groanings of expostula- 
tion from the old sofa, clanking of the fireguard, a 
veritable tornado of noise, enough surely to awaken 
the dead, yet out of the living it only awakened — us. 
No one else in the house ever heard it, and our vivid 
descriptions were, perhaps, naturally attributed to 
nightmare. 

We, of course, knew that it was nothing of the sort. 
We were, indeed, very wide awake during the ten to 
fifteen minutes the pandemonium continued, and our 
eyes were kept darting from side to side following the 
track of the noises, as they grew in volume and in- 
tensity. Creak, groan, crash ! No mistaking the spot 
where that deafening sound came from. That was the 
old mahogany wardrobe being hurled face downwards 
on the floor, but whilst our eyes were riveted on its 
statuesque and utter immobility jingle, clank, from 
the fender, where the fire-irons commenced to jig. A 
wildly confused uproar over all the room, then boom, 
thud, beneath us, and our beds shivered convulsively, 
and sent thrills of wild excitement coursing through 
our nerves. 



" SILK DRESS " AND " RUMPUS " 13 

Suddenly the tumult would cease. The mystery 
lay in the fact that we never saw anything move, 
though we distinctly heard everything moving, and 
could feel our beds reel beneath us. 

I have no explanations to offer of those happenings. 
They are very clearly fixed in my objective memory, 
and when we were both grown up, and had finally 
left that house my brother used often to say to me, 
" Do you remember * Silk Dress ' and ' Rumpus ' ? " 

Such recollections crowd back upon me now, with 
many other images of childhood. No sooner do I 
recollect one than another emerges like a shining cloud 
from below the horizon. Where have they been lying 
hidden during all those flying years? They have 
dwelt deep down in the eternal memory, the heart of 
God which beats in all humanity. Within that heart 
are stored seonic treasures. They lie ever in wait to 
be bidden arise and cross the threshold. 



CHAPTER II 

THE GHOST OF BROUGHTON HALL 

I WAS about six years old when my family moved 
to a brand new house in Claremont Crescent, 
that had just been erected on the outskirts of 
Edinburgh. There were still some green fields un- 
built upon, and some fine old trees left standing close 
to us, and those were still included in a triangular 
group of three grand old Manors — Broughton Hall, 
Powder Hall, and Logie Green. All three had the 
reputation of being badly haunted. The first named 
stood almost within a stone's throw of our end of the 
Crescent, and was occupied by an ancient family named 
Walker, who had held the property for generations. 
They still existed as a very charming relic of Scotch 
antiquity, and they had always been friends of our 
family. 

The house from the outside was very grim and for- 
bidding-looking. It was hidden from the eyes of the 
curious behind very high walls, and was entered upon 
by two huge gates, always kept closed. 

Inside, the house was most interesting and attrac- 
tive. There were many closed rooms and winding 
staircases, and odd steps in long, dark corridors, but 
the rooms that were lived in were beautiful of their 
kind. There were desks with secret drawers, wonder- 
ful pieces of Chippendale, tenderly cared for, quan- 
tities of rare old china and cut glass, and on the 

14 



THE GHOST OF BROUGHTON HALL 15 

walls hung glorious Romneys and Hoppners, which 
fetched huge prices at Christie's when the household 
was finally broken up by death. 

The family consisted of three sisters, Fanny, Hope, 
and Kitty, the latter a widow, named Mrs. Chew. 
There were two brothers, Adam and John. The for- 
mer lived with his sisters. John was a minister, and 
only paid visits. There was a nephew, the heir, Wil- 
liam Stephens, who also paid long visits to the Hall. 
Though, at the date of which I speak, about 1870, he 
must have been at least sixty, he was always referred 
to as " the Laddie." 

The three sisters occupied distinct positions in the 
house. Mrs. Chew acted as cook, though servants 
were kept, and she always sat in the kitchen, only 
coming " through " to the dining-room for her meals. 
Miss Hope was the worldly member of the family. 
She had been to London Town, and could not be relied 
upon to stop at home. She looked after the polishing 
of the furniture, the old glass and china. Miss Fanny 
was the lady of the family. She always sat in the 
best parlor. Every one waited on her, and she was 
never permitted to do anything for herself. 

She dressed for the part in thick, black satin, with, 
in winter, a white silk embroidered Chinese shawl, 
and, in summer, old Brussels lace. Across her fore- 
head was a band of black velvet, with a pear-shaped 
pearl depending between the eyebrows. Over her 
snow-white hair was flung a piece of old lace sur- 
mounting a wreath of artificial flowers. Her claw- 
like hands were covered by lace mittens and many 
rings. I saw her constantly, and she was always idle. 
I never saw her read, or sew, or knit, and often I won- 
dered what she thought about, as she sat there always 



i6 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

in the same chair, year in year out, and with no 
companion but a large gray parrot. True, her sur- 
roundings were delightful. From her chair near the 
fire she could look out on the quaint old garden, al- 
ways full of flowers, and she could glance around her 
at the many beautiful objects the room contained. 

I especially admired one Hoppner. The subject 
was a beautiful woman, with a mass of powdered hair, 
seated by an open window. Her cheek was supported 
in her hand, and at her elbow was a quaint little wicker 
cage containing a bird. I think the artist meant to 
suggest that both were captives. Though quite well in 
health. Miss Fanny never left the house, even to walk 
in the garden. 

My father and I went very often to call upon 
those curious old people, who were so utterly out of 
touch with modern life, backward though life was then 
in the Northern Capital. We arrived at all sorts of 
hours, but refreshments were always produced. An 
amazingly rich cake, and fruity old port, served in 
large quarter-pint cut-glass rummers. It was not con- 
sidered polite to refuse those offerings, which were 
always kept in a corner cupboard, and served by Mrs. 
Chew, who emerged from the kitchen, or Miss Hope, 
who left her housework to greet us. 

Though Broughton Hall was commonly reputed to 
be haunted, no one seemed to know what form the 
ghost took. I was great friends with Mr. Adam, a 
majestic, clean-shaven old man, who carried his chin 
very high above an enormous black silk stock, and 
often I tried to draw him on the subject of the ghost, 
but without success. He took it very seriously, and 
warned me that " I wouldn't be any the better for hav- 
ing seen it. Besides," he always concluded, " it's a 



THE GHOST OF BROUGHTON HALL 17 

family affair." The sisters were even more uncom- 
municative. 

My father and I were profoundly interested in this 
ghost. There was something about the whole estab- 
lishment that was extremely promising, from the 
ghost-hunter point of view. The consequence of this 
was that we were always on the prowl. Nothing dis- 
couraged us, and we spared neither time nor trouble. 
There is no research which requires such infinite pa- 
tience as psychic research. Several years passed be- 
fore the great moment arrived, and when it did arrive 
it was all over in about four minutes. 

My father had a way of suddenly looking up from 
his work and saying, " Let's go to Broughton Hall." 
I would at once rise, and together we would pass out 
into the night, without either hats or coats. Very 
eccentric, it may be said, but then we frankly were 
very eccentric. We would steal away together around 
the Crescent, and down the road till we reached the 
great gates. Very softly we opened and closed them, 
and keeping well in the shadow of the trees and 
bushes we would creep round the silent house. 

I cannot describe the thrill of those nocturnal ad- 
ventures. It was all so eerie, so full of vague, terrify- 
ing possibilities. I don't know what we expected to 
see, and we were generally back again in our own 
house in half an hour ; but one night our patience really 
was rewarded. 

It was November, dry, but wild and bitterly cold. 
Billowy white snow clouds scudding before a brisk 
north wind threw us alternately into light and dark- 
ness, as they covered and uncovered the face of the 
full moon. We had emerged from our house about 
half-past nine, and had reached the back of Brough- 



i8 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

ton Hall. The house was shrouded in darkness and 
dead silence, every blind was close drawn, and the 
suggestion was one of utter emptiness. My father and 
I were walking apart, I being right under the shadow 
of the walls, whilst he was in the middle of the paved 
court, which had neither hedge nor walls, but met the 
edge of the field running up to it. 

Suddenly I heard him whisper " Hush ! " though 
we never did utter a word whilst close to the house. 
His arm was pointing in front of him. I stared ahead, 
and then I saw, clearly lit by the moon, a woman who 
had apparently just rounded the corner of the house. 
She was running hard, straight towards us, and her 
feet made no sound on the round cobble stones. 

Terror suddenly seized me, and I darted across to 
my father, and got well behind him, seizing him firmly 
round the waist. The woman came on, rushing wildly. 
She had nearly reached us, and I was almost thrown 
over as my father faced her, and backed to allow her 
to pass. I peeped round him, and saw a woman, 
ghastly pale, and distraught-looking, clad in a white 
nightdress. Two long strands of black hair streamed 
out behind her, and her bare arms were outstretched 
in front. In a flash she had passed, and absolutely 
silently, and I found myself lying on the ground alone, 
and my father vanishing in hot pursuit. 

Needless to say I very quickly picked myself up 
again, and joined the chase. Terror lent me wings, 
and in a minute or two I came up with him, standing 
breathless by the gate. 

" Vanished into thin air just as I reached her. 
That's always the way. You can't catch them," he 
said. 

We made a little detour before going home, in 



THE GHOST OF BROUGHTON HALL 19 

order to discuss the great event. We had no doubt 
that we had seen a genuine apparition. We knew all 
the occupants of the Hall, and the woman had van- 
ished in the open, and in full flight, just as my father 
had come up alongside her. He cautioned me against 
mentioning our adventure to any one, and I kept 
silence until years after, when Broughton Hall was 
pulled down and its inmates were all dead. 

Before going on to our next ghostly adventure I 
will say a few words about my father, Robert Cham- 
bers, who in those days was something of a celebrity, 
and a very remarkable man. 

In appearance he was very handsome, extremely 
tall and well built, and with features that were well- 
nigh perfect. It was the fashion in his time to wear 
the hair rather long, and his was dark and very curly. 
He always dressed well, in the style of the country 
gentleman, rather than as a town dweller. 

In character he was extremely independent, and 
was utterly indifferent to two things — money and 
public opinion. His intellect was extraordinary, and 
it was commonly said that he knew a great deal about 
most things, and something about all things. 

In Scotland, in those days, it was not considered 
necessary to trouble about the education of girls. No 
one ever tried to educate me, consequently at a very 
early age I was absolutely free to devote myself en- 
tirely to my father, and we were inseparable. Our 
intercourse was not that of father and daughter. It 
was that of confidential friends of an equal age. At 
that period my mother was more or less of an invalid, 
and had her own attendants. 

My father and I went every morning at ten o'clock 
to the old business house of W. and R. Chambers, in 



20 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

the High Street of Edinburgh, and remained there 
till half -past two, when we walked home together, 
sometimes paying a call or two on the way. Though 
a mere uneducated child I helped him in his literary 
work, and at odd hours committed to memory many 
poets. We returned to four o'clock dinner, the correct 
hour in those days, and at six o'clock a porter arrived 
with my father's bag, containing manuscripts to be 
read and selected for Chambers' Journal. From six 
p. m. till midnight he worked at reading manuscript, 
not typed then, and proof correcting. 

Twice a week we went to the theater — there was 
only one in Edinburgh then. It was managed by a 
hard working couple, Mr. and Mrs. Howard, who 
sometimes filled up a week by acting themselves. I 
am bound to say we spent most of our time in the 
Green Room, and I knew every turn and twist behind 
the curtain. This turned out to be lucky for us. 

One night we went to a performance given by the 
Arthur Sullivan Company, and about halfway through 
a cry of " Fire " was raised. Great masses of burning 
stuff began to drop from the ceiling down into the 
auditorium. Instantly there was a panic, and a ter- 
rible stampede, and my father and I leaned forward, 
protecting our heads behind the backs of the stalls in 
front, whilst the mad rush climbed over us. When 
all was clear in front of us we made our way to the 
back of the stage, and escaped quite easily. I looked 
behind me, and I can see now the dense mass of strug- 
gling humanity wedged in the doorway. 

I remained safely with Mrs. Howard whilst my 
father ran around to the front and helped to extricate 
the dead. The theater was burned to the ground, but 
was very rapidly built up again. 



THE GHOST OF BROUGHTON HALL 21 

My first literary effort must here be recorded. I 
collaborated with Professor Andrew Wilson in writ- 
ing the pantomime of " AH Baba and the Forty 
Thieves." 

Andrew Wilson was Professor of Natural Science, 
and an extremely versatile person — a passionate 
love of the drama was added to his many scientific 
attainments. We wrote the dialogue together, in one 
long revelry of laughter, and I was responsible for 
the words of the songs. As a literary effort I can 
only describe it as appalling. The pantomime was, 
however, a great success. The audacity of our utter 
incompetence proved highly successful, and the critics 
justly described it as " The funniest Pantomime in 
Scotland." No wonder the audience laughed from 
start to finish. 

My father always called at once upon any celebrity 
who happened to be passing through the city, and 
thus I became acquainted with many interesting and 
amusing people. Henry Irving was amongst the num- 
ber. We always called upon him on our way to busi- 
ness, a little before ten. If he was playing for a week 
we called on him every morning, and often looked 
into the Green Room at night. He and my father 
were great friends, and at the hour of our visit he was 
always propped up in bed having breakfast. I used 
to perch on the bed whilst the two men talked. Ir- 
ving's nightshirt interested me (pyjamas had not come 
in then). It was white cambric with two enormous 
double frills down the front, and quite a pierrot ruffle 
round his neck. He was profoundly interested in 
the occult, and told me that a ghost he had once seen 
had suggested to him a particular action of his whilst 
playing in " The Bells." At the moment when he 



22 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

parted the curtains, and looked wildly out, shouting 
hoarsely, " The Bells, the Bells!" 

Through Irving we came to know the Baroness 
Burdett Coutts, his ardent admirer. She was very 
kind to me, and presented me with a green silk dress, 
but I always thought her a very melancholy woman, 
even when entertaining many interesting people in her 
celebrated corner house in Piccadilly, with its white 
china parrot swinging in the window. She was much 
attached to my father, and treated him with a humble 
and touching deference. 

Robert Chambers was a very keen sportsman, who 
fortunately did not require much practice to keep up 
his game. He held championships in golf and bowl- 
ing. He was too ardent a naturalist and ornithologist 
to care for shooting, but he was an expert angler. He 
was also a born actor and mimic, and used to keep a 
Green Room in roars by " taking off " any of " the 
profession " called for, and I never heard a better 
ventriloquist. He adored music, and played the flute 
well. As a platform speaker he was extremely fluent 
and perfectly at ease. 

His indifference to money resulted in his never hav- 
ing a penny in his pocket at night, no matter how 
much he took with him in the morning, and one of my 
tasks was to prevent his being fleeced by those who lay 
in wait for him. He took any amount of trouble over 
impecunious and incompetent authors, and constantly 
re-wrote their work for them in order to make it fit 
for publication. He was a unique editor, and his 
labors in the cause of charity were strenuous, secret, 
and, I fear, rather indiscriminate. 

During this period of my life, the head of the house, 
William Chambers, was still living, with his quaint 



THE GHOST OF BROUGHTON HALL 23 

old wife, in the West End of Edinburgh. WilHam, 
who had survived his more versatile brother, Robert 
(my grandfather), was a little shriveled-up old man, 
with a dry and severe manner. Most people were 
afraid of him, few liked him, but I got on with him 
famously. I have always been extremely proud of 
the fact that he rose from nothing to great wealth. 
There must be something fine in a man, who, as a lad, 
rose at four a. m. to read classics to an intelligent 
baker, whilst the batch of bread was being baked, 
and who gladly accepted as payment a copper or a roll. 

William and Robert Chambers had left their 
widowed mother to fend for themselves. The family 
was at the lowest financial ebb. Much money had been 
spent on the French refugees who flocked into Scotland 
in 1 810, and there was nothing to spare now. We 
were originally French, like so very many of the old 
Scotch families. The first of us in history is recorded 
as Guillaume de la Chaumbre, who, as the most prom- 
inent man in Peebles, signed the Ragman Roll in 
1296. My people had always lived in the dales of 
the Tweed, so very appropriately I married a man 
called Tweedale. 

Towards the end of his life William Chambers 
amused himself by spending many thousands on the 
restoration of St. Giles' Cathedral, an historic church 
which had fallen into great disrepair. This was a 
time of great interest for me, and I used to spend hours 
helping the workmen to gather up the thousands of 
human skulls that paved the church to a good depth. 
There were tombs laid bare of many celebrated people 
of the long ago, and these had to be identified, and 
carefully kept intact, until finally given a safer resting- 
place. 



24 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

William Chambers had been offered a baronetcy 
some years previously, but he refused it. He told me 
he did not consider it a dignified thing for a man of 
letters to bear any other honor than that accorded 
to brain power by a benefited world. He and his 
brother Robert were the pioneers of cheap and good 
educational literature for the laboring man, and the 
avidity with which this literature, " Chambers' In- 
formation for the People," was consumed, appeared 
to be a fitting reward. In those days it was an un- 
heard-of thing for a publisher to be honored by a title. 
Now, however, on the eve of the re-opening of St. 
Giles' Cathedral, Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, com- 
manded William Chambers to accept a baronetcy. 
The old couple were much agitated, but had to submit, 
and the Queen announced her intention of performing 
the opening ceremony. 

When the day arrived William Chambers lay dead 
in his house, and my father and I took the place of 
the old couple. The Queen was indisposed, and Lord 
Aberdeen took her place. 

After the ceremony both Lord Aberdeen and Lord 
Rosebery urged upon my father to take up the baron- 
etcy, more especially as he was his uncle's heir, but 
this he utterly refused to do. 

Old Lady Chambers, the widow, discarded her title 
immediately and remained Mrs. Chambers till the day 
of her death. 

It must have been at least a month after William 
Chambers' death that he visited me in a very vivid 
dream. I dreamed that he was standing beside my 
bed, and suddenly he bent over me and whispered in 
my ear, " I've left you all my money." On waking 
I had totally forgotten the dream, but later in the day 



THE GHOST OF BROUGHTON HALL 25 

an old servant of ours said to me, " I saw the wraith 
of your Uncle William last night, but he had nothing 
to say to me." 

Then my dream flashed back to me. A day or two 
afterwards I said suddenly to the old family lawyer, 
" Was there ever a question of Uncle William leaving 
his money to me? " 

The dry answer was, " Yes ! at one time there was 
a question of that." I could never extract anything 
further from him on the subject. 

Though now possessed of considerable wealth my 
father made no difference in his mode of life, and he 
continued to work just as hard as ever, and to give 
away large sums of money. He never wanted any- 
thing for himself, but was always ready to give to 
others. He had a great love of precious stones, and 
always carried about little packets of diamonds, which 
looked like packets of chemists' powders. Had I de- 
sired I could have loaded myself with jewels. He 
never denied me anything and we continued our close 
companionship, the only difference now being we took 
some holidays in the form of afternoons off. 

On one of these occasions we saw our second ghost. 

We went to pay a visit to a very old woman, whose 
name I cannot remember. She lived alone with one 
servant in an ancient dwelling in Inveresk. The house 
was a large one, and was enclosed by very high walls, 
which entirely isolated it from the busy streets that 
surrounded it. The original old garden remained, in 
all its beauty, and the rooms were full of quaint heir- 
looms. 

We were always made very welcome, and the servant 
at once produced a delicious tea, consisting of fresh 
baked scones, butter made of real cream — margarine 



26 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

being not then invented — home-made strawberry jam, 
and home-laid eggs. Russian eggs were not then im- 
ported. 

I must here interpose that deliciously innocent tele- 
gram sent by an Aberdeen merchant in the first days 
of the Great War, and which set all England and Scot- 
land mad to see the fur and snow-clad Russian troops 
passing through to the Front. The telegram ran as 
follows : — 

" Twenty thousand Russians arrived." 

The twenty thousand Muscovites were only twenty 
thousand stale eggs, but Lord Kitchener's order was, 
" Let it stand." 

To return to my story. 

One glorious late spring evening we were seated 
at tea, and the window was thrown wide to the per- 
fumed garden, where lilacs, and wallflowers, and lilies 
of the valley rioted gloriously. The birds were in full 
song in this peaceful sanctuary, which might have 
been a hundred miles away from a town. My father 
had put his invariable question to the old woman, 
" Have you seen her again ? " Sometimes the answer 
was Yes, sometimes No. I gathered that this question 
referred to the old woman's dead daughter, her only 
child. This daughter had been violently insane for 
many years and had remained under her mother's 
protection. She had died some years previously, at 
the age of fifty-five, having endured a terribly long 
martyrdom. 

Suddenly my father broke off the conversation. 

" My God ! there she is ! " He half rose from his 
chair and stared through the open window. I looked 



THE GHOST OF BROUGHTON HALL 27 

in the same direction. A woman was strolling aim- 
lessly along the path just outside. There was a curious 
uncertainty about her movements. She walked like 
a blind person, who has neither stick nor arm to guide 
her. Strangely enough I never thought of connecting 
this woman with the ghost of the mad daughter. She 
looked so natural, so commonplace. Her hollow face 
was quite gray, and her dark hair was drawn tightly 
back from it, and rolled in an ugly knob behind. Her 
dress was of some dark material, her boots were of 
cloth, and her hands and arms were rolled up in a 
stuff apron she wore. 

There she was, vacantly wandering in the garden, 
in the lovely spring evening, with the blackbirds and 
thrushes singing their hearts out all around her, and 
I did not comprehend why such an ordinary, un- 
attractive looking person should so deeply interest my 
father. 

I turned round to say something to the old woman, 
then I instantly understood. She had gone down on 
her knees, and had hidden herself by throwing the end 
of the tablecloth over her head. 

Then I turned my eyes back to the apparition. I 
don't suppose she was visible for more than four 
minutes. I remember my father uttering consoling 
words to the effect that " she's gone," and helping the 
old woman into her chair again, when we resumed 
our tea and conversation, as if nothing unusual had 
occurred. 

Looking back upon these incidents I contrast the 
infinite trouble we took in our hunt for ghosts, with 
present-day psychical research. I think of the in- 
numerable half hours we spent at Broughton Hall, 
and only once were we rewarded by seeing anything. 



28 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

We visited the old woman at Inveresk whenever we 
found time. There was nothing in the least inspiring 
or interesting in her conversation, yet to us there was 
an unspeakable charm about her outward circum- 
stances. 

There was the spiritual charm of the silent old 
house, with its vibrating memories of the long de- 
parted. The charm of the cloistered peace, amidst 
which the woman lived and dreamed, shut away from 
the world by the high walls. It was a retreat in which 
to meditate, and that always appealed to me. A 
dwelling with a beautiful view has a great charm, but 
it draws the thoughts always outward to the external. 
Still, when I pass a quiet old homestead, hidden away 
in its own flowery old garden from the eyes of the 
world, it attracts me far more than the far-flung 
grandeur of many a stately English mansion. 

Only in such retreats of ancient peace can the 
thoughts be turned continuously inward, to their true 
bourne — the temple of the living God. 

I seem to have been bom with an ingrained belief 
in the enormous virtue of renunciation. Self-sacrifice, 
I am certain, is the foundation stone upon which is 
built the moral progress of man. I had occasion to 
prove this for myself at a comparatively early age. 
My mother suddenly became much more ailing than 
usual, and began to suffer a great deal of pain. A 
consultation of doctors was called by our own family 
physician, and two of the greatest surgeons in Edin- 
burgh arrived one morning at our house. 

After about an hour they came into the room in 
which I awaited them. Their faces were very grave. 
They informed me, as kindly as they could, that they 
had arrived at the unanimous opinion that my mother 



THE GHOST OF BROUGHTON HALL 29 

was suffering from internal cancer, and that she might 
possibly live another six months. Our own doctor 
confessed that he had long suspected this, and the two 
surgeons corroborated his opinion. There was no 
doubt in their minds, as the disease had openly declared 
itself. 

I took this shock in perfect silence for a minute or 
two, then I decided upon my first course of action. I 
asked them in the meanwhile to keep this matter secret 
from every one, even from my father. 

To this they rather demurred, saying that it was 
only right that he should know the truth, and that he 
would certainly question them. I then urged that our 
family doctor had known of this, and had hidden his 
knowledge up to to-day. It would be easy enough for 
him to go on hiding the truth for a short time longer. 

The doctors sought to know my reason for this 
secrecy; it would do no good, the truth would have 
to come out. I could give no reason. I had no reason, 
only a very strong instinct, and I wanted time. I 
asked for a fortnight, after which I would myself 
inform my father of the nature of my mother's malady. 

They agreed to this, doubtless much relieved that 
so unpleasant a task was removed to other shoulders, 
and they went away. 

That night I did not sleep. I had too much to 
think out. My mother must not die. I had to form 
some plan to save her, if it were humanly possible. 
She was absolutely necessary, I considered, to the 
younger children. She would be required for some 
years yet. My life was wholly given up to my father, 
I had become necessary to him, and this left me no 
time to mother the young ones. His health was not 
of the best. A curious tendency to hemorrhage kept 



30 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

him constantly weak. If he had a tooth drawn bleed- 
ing would continue for days after. He needed all 
my attention. 

At that particular time I possessed something — 
never mind what — that meant more to me than any- 
thing else in the whole wide world. It was the 
greatest thing I had in life. I decided before morning 
that with this, my one great possession, I would strike 
a bargain with the Almighty. I would give Him a 
fortnight to consider it. I would offer Him the 
greatest thing in my life in exchange for my mother's 
Hfe. 

Quite conceivably He might refuse to consider the 
proposition, in which case I stood to lose everything. 
I could never again recover what I proposed to risk, 
but I came to the deliberate conclusion that it was 
worth it. The case demanded a desperate remedy. 

Having made up my mind, I went about the busi- 
ness in the crudest and most practical manner, I set 
aside certain odd half hours during the coming fort- 
night, in which I would state my case. I wanted God 
to have every opportunity of considering my sugges- 
tion on its simple merits. 

I began by pointing out to Him why it was so neces- 
sary that my mother should live, and then I went on 
to say that He might be sure I asked nothing for my- 
self. I proposed to give in exchange for my mother's 
life the greatest thing I possessed on earth, a thing that 
doubtless was of little interest to Him, but neverthe- 
less meant a very great deal to me — in fact, my all. 
I really had nothing else of any value to offer. 

Now, in thus addressing the Almighty, I was not 
acting as a primitive savage, for I had considered the 
subject of Deity for several years, and had studied 



THE GHOST OF BROUGHTON HALL 31 

most of the great theologians. I addressed Him thus 
as a Spirit of too supreme a potency, of too extraneous 
a mentality and majesty, to be addressed in any other 
terms but plain downright reasoning. Elaborate and 
propitiatory words were good enough for earthly 
princelets, but ridiculous when offered up to the Su- 
preme Creative Power. That was my way of looking 
at it, and I began at once to carry out my plan. There 
was no time to lose. Meanwhile, no living soul, save 
the doctors, knew of my secret. 

At the end of the second day my mother was free 
from pain. At the end of the first week she was 
recovering rapidly. The family doctor was intensely 
puzzled, but still adhered to his original conviction. 
On the eighth day I ceased my half -hourly reasoning 
with God. I merely thanked Him for concluding the 
bargain. He had accepted my sacrifice, the greatest 
I could make, and there that matter ended. I felt, 
without the smallest irreverence, that we were quits. 

At the end of the month the two great surgeons 
returned, at our own doctor's request. I awaited them 
with perfect assurance and tranquillity. When they 
came in to me they still looked perturbed. They told 
me that they had examined my mother, and found all 
traces of the malady had disappeared. They could 
not account for it, they reiterated their former diagno- 
sis, dwelling upon certain facts, in very natural self- 
justification. They expressed, in the very kindest 
manner, their deep regret for all the suffering and 
anxiety they must have caused me, and said how very 
lucky it was that no one had been made aware of their 
original convictions, save myself. The case was ex- 
traordinary, abnormal, there was nothing more to say. 
Then they went away for the last time. 



32 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

My father was greatly puzzled at their refusing to 
accept any fee, and to the day of his death our own 
doctor, whenever he found me alone, referred to the 
case as the most marvelous he had ever come across. 
My mother quite regained her health, and died many 
years after from lung trouble. 

One other great sacrifice I had to make a year or 
two after. My father was entirely confined to bed 
with a severe attack of internal hemorrhage, and at 
the same time my youngest sister was threatened with 
consumption. She was ordered to go to the South of 
France immediately. 

It was decided that I must go with her, as she could 
not be trusted to strangers. My mother, absolutely 
restored to health, would be left with my father, who 
had also a good nurse valet. 

My father and I bade each other farewell one early 
morning in February, 1888. We knew we would not 
meet again on earth. 

Only one other curious incident do I remember in 
connection with that town house we lived in. On the 
night of the 28th December we were all assembled in 
the library, most of us were reading, and a violent 
wind storm was howling round the house. Suddenly 
my father laid down the proof sheets he was correcting, 
and took out his watch. Then he turned to us and 
said : " At this moment, seven fifteen, on Sunday the 
28th of December, 1879, something terrible has hap- 
pened. I think a bridge must be down." 

The next day we learned that the Tay Bridge had 
been blown down at that very hour, and the train and 
its occupants hurled to death in the waters below. 



CHAPTER III 

CURIOUS PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES 

AFTER my father's death I began to live a much 
more independent life. I was financially in- 
dependent, and I proceeded to London, where 
I felt I would have a wider range of intellectual com- 
panionship. I lived in hotels and dispensed with all 
chaperonage, thus leaving myself free to join my 
mother on the Riviera in the early spring months. 

I never cared for dancing, and always having had 
the companionship of people who were years .older than 
myself, I had made few girl friends. My first cousin, 
Lady Campbell, wife of Sir Guy Campbell, Bart., 
6oth Rifles, and another first cousin, Menie Muriel 
Dowie, were the only two I really saw much of. 

Lady Campbell was, and is, a very attractive wo- 
man, possessed of great charm of manner. Exceed- 
ingly cultured and intelligent, she is also an artist to 
her finger tips. As girls we used to be fond of attend- 
ing Queen Victoria's Drawing-rooms. A bevy of us 
would take lunch with us in the carriages, and thor- 
oughly enjoy our day out. I was the last woman to 
kiss the hand of Queen Victoria at a Drawing-room. 
I was stopped by a Court official just as I was moving 
forward, and told to wait as " Her Majesty is going 
to withdraw." The present Dowager Queen Alexan- 
dra, as Princess of Wales, then took her place. On 

33 



34 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

this occasion I heard the Queen say, " Let this lady 
pass." I was then told to proceed. 

Being very tall I had always a certain difficulty 
in getting down low enough to kiss the tiny Queen's 
hand. After I had passed, and as I backed out of 
" the presence," I saw Her Majesty being assisted out 
of the queer little half chair, half stool she used. She 
never held another Drawing-room, and I regret that, 
being abroad, I had not the honor of making a last 
curtsy to the little coffin as it passed through the 
streets of London. 

Menie Muriel Dowie was a brilliant bohemian, as 
can be gathered by those who have read her book, 
" A Girl in the Carpathians." I have never known 
any woman who was possessed of so many natural 
talents. She is as much at home in skilled and 
polished diplomacy as in practical agriculture. She 
has always been a great traveler, yet a delicate woman. 
Only her indomitable spirit kept her going in her youth, 
as it still does in her beautiful house in Green Street, 
and her model farm in Gloucestershire. 

My greatest older friends were Mrs. Lynn Linton, 
the novelist. Browning, the poet, Lord Leighton, the 
painter, and Mrs. Proctor, .widow of Barry Cornwall, 
and mother of Adelaide Proctor, the poet. All people 
old enough to be my parents. 

I had a great admiration for Mrs. Lynn Linton's 
strong, cold intellect; it was so invigorating, and she 
was so self-reliant, an uncommon thing for a woman 
to be in those days. We had long arguments over 
matters occult, but I never could make the least im- 
pression upon her strong materialism. " I won't 
leave this earth even with you," she used to protest. 
She was a great friend and admirer of my aunt, Lady 



CURIOUS PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES 35 

Priestley, also a woman of very fine intellect, who 
devoted herself to scientific pursuits. Had she been 
a man, or had she lived in the present day, when 
woman has at last come into her own, she would have 
made a very strong mark. 

Robert Browning, whom I had known for some 
years, used to drop in very often to have a chat, and 
I rejoiced in him exceedingly as a born mystic of a 
high order. We often discussed the possibility of his 
work being directed from the other side, and we. argued 
as to whether he received inspiration from various 
quarters, or whether he was the beloved of some poet 
of a former age, who, active still in the spirit world, 
expressed his great thoughts through Robert Browning 
on earth. So many people at that time frankly said 
they could not understand Browning's poetry, and 
this I told him was to be attributed to lack of the mystic 
perception. Now that mysticism has so enormously 
developed, his work is much more comprehensive to 
the world. 

I had alas! only one year of really close friendship 
with him, for he died the year after I came to London. 

One curious thing Browning told me. 

He dropped in one night to see me, after dinner at 
a house where Millais, the painter, had been one of 
the guests. 

" Johnnie Millais told me an odd thing to-night," 
he said. " He's constantly seeing figures appearing 
and disappearing on the face of the canvas he's work- 
ing upon." 

" What sort of figures? " I asked. 

Browning shot out his cuff. 

" Here they are. I knew you'd be interested, so 
I took them down for you. Better write them down 



36 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

for yourself, but don't mention the subject to him or 
any of his family." 

I fetched a piece of paper and copied from Brown- 
ing's cuff. 

" 13. 1.8.9.6. The figures don't always come in 
that order," he said, " but more often than not they 
do. The 13 always comes up as 13, but he's seen 
9.6.1.8. What do you make of it?" 

" At present nothing, but the future may throw 
light upon the phenomenon," I answered. 

I never mentioned this occurrence to any one, and, 
indeed, forgot all about it till some years after Millais' 
death, when I came upon my notes in an old box. I 
then realized that the great painter had been looking 
upon the dates of his own death. He died on August 
13th, 1896. 

One night some one, I have not the least idea who, 
came to me in my sleep and bade me take up pencil 
and paper, and write to dictation. Still sound asleep 
I did as I was bidden. I always kept writing materials 
by my bedside. 

In the morning I remembered nothing of this till 
my eye fell upon some sheets of paper. The writing 
upon them was mine, but very big and untidy. Then 
I recollected the command I had received in the night 
and eagerly read what I had written. Here it is. 
I gave Browning a copy as he was so deeply inter- 
ested — 

"A solitary cottage stood on the edge of a 
bleak moorland. The sun sank behind the low 
horizon, and left marshy pools glowing like living 
opals. A stream of homeward flying rooks made 
a streak of indigo across the topaz sky where 



CURIOUS PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES 37 

gauzy wind-riven clouds floated westward. The 
sacred hush of eventide brooded under the calm 
wings of night. 

" Out on the waste wandered the Angel of 
* Sleep,' and the Angel of ' Death ' with arms 
fraternally entwined, and whilst the brotherly 
genii embraced each other, night stole down 
with velvet footfall, and the green stars peered 
forth. 

" Then the Angel of Sleep shook from out his 
hands the invisible grains of slumber, and bade 
the night wind waft them o'er the world. And 
soon the child in its cradle, the tired mother, the 
aged man, and the pain-laden woman were at 
peace. The curfew tolled out from the distant 
hamlet and then was still. 

" Inside the cottage a rushlight burned faintly, 
indicating the poverty of the room, and illumi- 
nating the death-like features of the boy who lay 
on the bed. By his side, worn out, sat the father, 
his horny hand clasped in that of his child. 

" And the two brother Angels advanced, hand 
in hand, and peered in at the window, and the 
Angel of Sleep said : ' Behold how gracious a 
thing it is, that we can visit this humble dwelling 
and scatter grains of slumber around, and send 
oblivion to the weary watcher. I am beloved and 
courted by all. How merciful is our vocation.' 
And silently he entered the room. 

" He kissed the eyelids of the weary watcher, 
and as he did so some grains fell from out the 
wreath of scarlet poppies that lay like drops of 
blood upon his brow. 

" But the Angel of Death sat without, his 



38 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

pallid face shrouded in the sable of his wings. 

" And he spake to the Angel of Sleep, ' Of 
a truth thou art happy and beloved. The welcome 
guest of all, whereas I am shunned, the door is 
barred as against a secret foe, and I am counted 
the enemy of the world.' 

" But the Angel of Sleep wiped away the im- 
mortal tears from the dark and mournful eyes of 
his brother Death. 

" ' Are we not children born of the one Fa- 
ther?' said he, 'and do not the good call thee 
friend, and the lonely, the homeless, the weary 
laden bless thy hallowed name when they wake 
in Paradise.' 

" And the Angel of Death unfurled his sable 
wings and took heart. And as Lucifer the light- 
bringer paled in the violet Heavens he silently 
entered the dwelling. With his golden scythe 
he cut the silver cord of life, and gathered the 
child to his faithful bosom." 

The evenings I most enjoyed were those I spent in 
the studio of Felix Moscheles, the great apostle of 
peace. There one met all the genius and talent in Lon- 
don, and any genius of foreign nationality who hap- 
pened to be visiting England. The cosmopolitan ele- 
ment always attracted me, and I went to several frankly 
revolutionary houses, where red tics flaunted, and 
where those Russian Nihilists found a welcome who 
were constantly rushing over here to escape Siberia. 
Through them I learned to understand what the real 
woes of Russia were, and to expect the present revolu- 
tion as the inevitable result of brutal repression and 
misgovernment. 



CURIOUS PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES 39 

During one winter at Nice I renewed my acquain- 
tance with one of the most remarkable mystics of mod- 
ern times, Marie, Countess of Caithness and Duchesse 
de Pomar. 

I had first met her in Edinburgh in 1872 when she 
was on the eve of her second marriage with Lord 
Caithness. My father and mother attended her very 
quiet wedding. Now we met again many years after 
at her beautiful home, the Palais Tiranty, Nice. 
Lady Caithness was widowed for the second time, Lord 
Caithness having died in 1881, and lived alone with 
her devoted son, the Due de Pomar. She had a 
magnificent home in Paris, " Holyrood," Avenue 
Wagram, This house contained a large lecture hall 
filled with gilt chairs, and hung round with fine pic- 
tures. Leading from this hall down a flight of marble 
stairs one came to a chapel or seance room, used for 
direct communication with the spirit of Mary Stuart, 
and said to have been built " under the Queen's in- 
structions." 

This presupposes Queen Mary to be still on " the 
other side." Other occultists maintain that she has 
reincarnated again in the person of a very old Em- 
press, who still lives on earth. 

It has been often said of Lady Caithness that she 
believed herself to be the reincarnation of Mary 
Stuart. During all the years I knew her intimately I 
never heard her even hint at such a belief, and the 
fact that she believed herself to be in touch with the 
Queen on " the other side " precludes in my opinion 
the possibility of her having formed such a concep- 
tion. 

What may have given rise to the suggestion was the 
fact that she dressed after the fashion of the Scottish 



40 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

Queen, and was surrounded by " Mary relics." Also, 
there is no doubt that she had a deeply sympathetic 
interest in the unfortunate Queen, and had elevated 
her memory into what amounted almost to a religion. 
In the chapel there is a full length lovely portrait of 
Mary, which is so lighted and arranged that it gives 
the impression of a living woman. Leading out of the 
dining-room was the bedroom of Lady Caithness, a 
sumptuous apartment. The bed was a state bed, 
plumes of ostrich feathers uprose at each corner. At 
one end was a crown, and behind the pillows was a 
fresco painting representing Jacob's Ladder, with a 
multitude of angels ascending and descending. Often 
Lady Caithness received in bed, as was the habit of the 
French Queens of former days. 

The jewels possessed by Lady Caithness were the 
most gorgeous I have ever seen. Nothing worn by 
crowned heads, at the many English Courts I have 
attended, were comparable to them. I can remember 
an Edinburgh jeweler inviting my father and me to 
inspect some diamonds belonging to her that he was 
cleaning. There was a long chain of huge diamonds 
reaching to the knees, with a cross attached, which 
no casual observer, not possessing the jeweler's guar- 
antee as we did, would have believed to be genuine. 
When standing receiving her guests in the beautiful 
salons of the Palais Tiranty, clad in crimson velvet, 
she looked a very wonderful figure, for she possessed 
exceptional personal beauty as well. 

As may be supposed, a woman of such commanding 
presence who was known to possess a deep interest 
in the occult, could secure the services of the best 
mediums the world over. I sat with her through 
many seances, successful, barren, and indifferent, 



CURIOUS PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES 41 

conducted by mediums of various nationalities. I 
remember one conducted by a South American me- 
dium, where the " controls " became very noisy and 
troublesome, and threatened to do serious damage. 
The medium could not be roused out of the trance 
she had fallen into, and it had really become necessary 
to put an end to the performance. She was a very 
big, heavy woman, and had sunk half off her chair on 
to the floor. I suggested to Lady Caithness that if 
we could drag or carry her into another room mat- 
ters might then quiet down, but I added dubiously, 
" She must be a great weight." 

Lady Caithness replied with a smile : " Try. You'll 
probably find her very light indeed." 

I did try, and this was the only time in my life 
that I had the opportunity of proving to myself how 
tremendously a medium loses weight whilst genuine 
manifestations are in progress. I found it quite easy 
to lift this woman, who in ordinary circumstances 
must have weighed at least twelve or thirteen stone. 

Sir William Crookes has given to the world a very 
interesting account of his work in weighing mediums, 
before and during materialization. He always found 
that a great decrease in weight took place during the 
materializations, proving how enormous is the drain 
on the strength of the medium. Such evidence is 
most valuable, as coming from our greatest chemist. 

On this particular night I had no doubt as to the 
genuineness of the medium. Had she been a fraud 
she would have stopped the seance at once, on seeing 
how annoyed Lady Caithness was. She had every 
reason to conciliate her, and was greatly distressed 
to hear that her services would no longer be required. 
The troublesome spirits followed her into the next 



42 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

room, but gradually subsided as we succeeded in bring- 
ing the woman back out of her trance. 

I used to go very often to the theater at Nice with 
Lady Caithness. She had her own box, and often 
invited Don Carlos of Spain, and other distinguished 
personages, to accompany her. One night we went 
to hear the incomparable Judic. We were only a 
party of three, the third being Prince Valori. 

The Prince was then a man past middle age. He 
3Uggested a magnificent ruin, retaining as he did the 
battered remains of great good looks, and it was plain 
to see that his valet was exceedingly skillful. He 
possessed also a European reputation for heiress hunt- 
ing, but to the day of his death he never succeeded 
in catching one, though it was said he had pursued 
his quarry in all parts of the world. Perhaps the 
figure he placed upon his ancient lineage and his 
personal charm was too high; perhaps he had begun 
his quest too late in life, though the position of a 
widowed Princess Valori would certainly not have been 
without attraction. I attributed his single blessedness 
to quite a different cause. 

That night, whilst my attention was fixed on the 
stage, I became dimly aware that some one had entered 
our box, but until the song was over I did not turn 
round to look who it was. We always had visitors 
coming and going. When at last I did glance round 
I saw nothing remarkable. Only a man in fancy dress 
seated behind Valori, a man whom I had never seen 
before. 

At that period Nice went mad during the winter 
season. The most extravayant amusements were en- 
tered into with a wild zest, by the very cosmopolitan 
society of extremely wealthy people. There were 



CURIOUS PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES 43 

fancy dress balls every night somewhere, and no one 
thought it strange to see bands of revelers in fancy 
costume vv^alking about the streets and thronging the 
cafes at all hours of the night. 

I was not therefore astonished to see this man in 
fancy dress, leaning familiarly over the back of Prince 
Valori's chair. He was a very thin man, with very 
long, thin legs, and he was dressed entirely in choco- 
late brown — a sort of close-fitting cowl was drawn 
over his head, and his curious long, impish face was 
made more weird by small, sharply pointed ears rising 
on each side of his head. He appeared to have " got 
himself up " to look like a satyr, or some such mythical 
monstrosity. He was not introduced to me at the 
moment, and other people entering our box whom I 
knew, I forgot about him. When the box cleared 
before the next act I noticed he had gone. 

A week or so after this I went to a fancy dress ball 
given by a Russian friend of mine — Princess Lina 
Galitzine. There was a great crowd, and a number 
of Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses, some of whom 
had driven long distances from their villas and hotels 
in Mentone, Monte Carlo, and Beaulieu, etc. I soon 
saw Prince Valori making his way towards me, dressed 
very magnificently, in a French costume of the 
eighteenth century. By his side moved the man in 
brown. 

Now that I saw " the satyr " under brilliant light 
he struck me at once as something peculiar. His walk 
was alone sufficient to attract attention. He strutted 
on tiptoes, with a curious jerk with every step he made. 
Those who remember Henry Irving's peculiar walk 
may form some idea of " the satyr's " movements. 
They were Irving's immensely exaggerated. I con- 



44 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

eluded that Valori was bringing him up to present 
him to me, but such proved not to be his intention. 
Valori shook hands, coolly requested the young Amer- 
ican to whom I was talking to move off and find some 
one to dance with, and seated himself in the vacated 
chair. " The satyr " stood by his side and said noth- 
ing. I thought this very odd, and glancing, when- 
ever I could do so unobserved, at the silent brown 
figure, I began to feel uneasy and shivery. It was 
impossible, whilst he stood there listening to all we 
said, to ask Valori who he was, and no mention was 
made of him. 

As soon as I could I escaped to talk to some one 
else, and for an hour or two I avoided both. During 
this time I asked several people who " the satyr " 
was, but no one seemed to have noticed him in the 
crowd. At last, when seated at supper with the late 
James Gordon Bennett, who did not usually go to 
balls, but had looked in here for half an hour for some 
purpose of his own, I found myself seated next to a 
very charming Pole, married to a Russian, the Princess 
Schehoffskoi. I knew her to be a genuine mystic, 
one of the group who first instituted spiritualism into 
the Russian Court circles. I seized an opportunity, 
whilst Gordon Bennett was occupied with some one 
else, to ask her who the brown satyr was who had 
attached himself to Valori. 

She was at once absorbed in the question, and, 
lowering her voice, she said, " Why, how interesting ! 
Don't you know that is his ' Familiar ' who is con- 
stantly in attendance upon him. People say they 
became attached whilst he was attending a ' Sabbath ' 
in the Vosges, and he can't get rid of it." 

"A Sabbath!" I echoed blankly. 



CURIOUS PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES 45 

" Yes ! Surely you have heard of a ' Witch's Sab- 
bath.' They still hold them at Lutzei, and each per- 
son receives a ' Familiar.' Those * Sabbaths ' are 
the most appalling orgies and hideously blasphemous. 
The * Familiars ' have names — Minette, Verdelet, etc. 
I had an ancestor who owned a * Familiar ' called 
Sainte Buisson. His name was de Laski. Of course, 
he was a Pole, and a Prince of Siradia, and he came 
across Dr. Dee, the necromancer of Queen Elizabeth's 
time. They seem to have entered into a sort of part- 
nership." 

All this the Princess told me quite seriously, and 
I found out later from her that Satanism or devil 
worship was largely practiced in France. It is in- 
teresting to note that the names of the French war 
mascots of the moment are all taken from the names 
of well-known " Familiars " in occult lore. 

" Then the * satyr ' attached to Valori is not human 
flesh and blood; how horrible!" I whispered back. 
" Have many people seen him ? Is he always 
there?" 

The Princess nodded, " The clairvoyantes here all 
know about it, and I myself have seen him, not here, 
but in Paris. I shall go in search of Valori directly 
after supper." 

" And I shall go home to bed," I answered. 

The next morning I met Valori, alone, on the Prome- 
nade des Anglais. He turned and strolled by my 
side, and I determined to put a straight question. 
After a little trivial conversation I said, " By the way, 
who is that brown man, dressed like a Satyr, who has 
been with you lately ? " 

I watched Valori's face as I put the question, and 
as I saw the change that came over it I felt very sorry 



46 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

and ashamed of having spoken. He looked so utterly 
dejected and miserable. 

" You also? " he muttered, then fell to silence. 

I gathered that the same question had been put to 
him before, and I hastened to reassure him, " Don't 
answer. My question was impertinent; let us speak 
of other things," I said hastily, but he remained silent, 
staring down at the ground. Then suddenly he said — 

" I am not the only one in the world so afflicted." 

I did not pursue the subject. His words were true. 
That evening I received a large bouquet of Russian 
violets, and on a card was written the following French 
proverb : — " La reputation d'un homme est comme 
son ombre, qui tantot le suit et tantot le precede; 
quelquefois elle est plus longue et quelquefois plus 
courte que lui." 

At that time the whole Riviera was swarming with 
professional clairvoyantes, and it soon " got wind " 
that Prince Valori's " Familiar " was walking about 
with him. He treated the matter almost as lightly as 
a distinguished English General treated his " Fa- 
mihar." 

The Englishman, General Elliot, who commanded 
the forces in Scotland, was a very well-known society 
man, about twenty-five years ago. He had a name 
for his Familiar, " Wononi," and used actually to 
speak aloud with him in the middle of a dinner-party. 
The General occupied a very distinguished position, 
not only in his profession, but in the social world, and 
to look at he was the very last man that one would 
associate with matters occult. 

In 1895 Marie, Duchesse de Pomar and Countess 
of Caithness, died. She had the right to claim burial 
in Holyrood Chapel, and a very simple stone marks 



CURIOUS PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES 47 

her last resting-place. To her I owe the warmest 
friendship of my life, for it was in her opera box I met 
the present Lady Treowen, born a daughter of Lord 
Albert Conynghame, who afterwards became the first 
Lord Londesborough. To the many who know and 
love her, Albertina Treowen represents a type of per- 
fect breeding, alas! fast becoming extinct in these 
days. She has lived the reality of noblesse oblige, has 
the rare gift of perfect friendship, and combines a rare 
refinement of mind with strong moral courage. 



CHAPTER IV 

EAST END DAYS AND NIGHTS 

IF we had found the golden thread of meaning 
which gives coherence to the whole; if we had 
been taught as our religion that every man and 
woman was receiving the strictest justice at the Di- 
vine hands, and that our conditions to-day were ex- 
actly those our former lives entitled us to, how dif- 
ferent would be our outlook on life. As it is, men 
have fallen away in their bitter discontent from a God 
in whose justice they have ceased to believe, and of 
whose impartiality they see no sign. 

I doubt if any religion extant has claimed such a 
wide diversity in its adherents as Christianity. Calvin, 
Knox, Torquemada, the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
and Kaiser Wilhelm, Mr. Gladstone, and Czar 
Nicolas. The Pope of Rome, and Spurgeon. Even 
those nine names, which might be multiplied indefi- 
nitely, show us diametrically opposed readings of the 
same faith. 

It would be of enormous benefit to us if we studied 
all the great religions, and separated from each the 
obviously false from the true, and appropriated the 
latter. The Bible would gain enormously in value if 
studied in conjunction with other sacred books written 
before the advent of Christ. 

A careful study of the ancient faiths will reveal a 
wonderful similarity. We are beginning to break 

48 



EAST END DAYS AND NIGHTS 49 

down the limitations which have been presumptuously 
cast around the conceptions of the Divine teachings. 
We begin to see that not only in Palestine, but in all 
the world, and amongst all peoples, God has been re- 
vealing Himself to the hearts of men. 

It is always folly for the orthodox to hold up hands 
in holy horror at the views of the unorthodox. It is 
a selfish standpoint, and makes matters no better. 
Doubt does not spring from the wish to doubt. It 
arises solely from the play of the mind on the facts of 
daily hfe surrounding us. The truth remains, that, 
unless the Church recovers those vital doctrines that 
she has lost, and which alone make life rational to the 
intelligent, she will be finally abandoned when the 
present generation, dies out. 

We can never rest content with a faith which flatly 
contradicts the facts of life which surround us, and 
press in on us from every side in our daily existence. 
We hold that what we undoubtedly find in life ought 
to have its complement in religion. The searching 
temper of our vast sacrifices in war are thrusting faith 
down to primitive bed-rock. Orthodoxies and hetero- 
doxies will not matter much now. What will matter 
will be honesty, effectiveness, and a rational explana- 
tion of life. For nineteen hundred years we have pro- 
fessed the religion of what others said about Christ. 
Now the hour is approaching when we must try the 
religion of what Christ said about us and the world. 

I was always of a very inquiring turn of mind, and 
I had abandoned orthodoxy before I was twenty. I 
had read everything I could lay my hands on, and I 
emerged after a year or two, an out-and-out agnostic, 
in the popular sense of the term. 

I had, however, no intention of remaining in that 



50 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

condition. I was convinced there must be some link 
between Science and Religion, and that a just God, 
worthy of all worship, was to be found, if only I knew 
where to seek. I can look back on this crude stage of 
my life, and see what a nuisance I must have been, 
with my defiant disbelief and constant questioning. 
I became an ardent truth-seeker, but my demands, I 
can now realize, grew out of my palpitating desire to 
reduce the world of disorder to the likeness of a su- 
preme and beneficent Creator. If God be just and 
good, then what is the explanation of this hideous 
discrepancy in human lives? 

Following on this came the question : " Is it pos- 
sible that a just God is going to judge us, one and all, 
on our miserable record of three score years and ten? " 

" Whatsoever ye soweth that shall ye reap." So 
the criminal and the savage were to be judged by their 
deeds, though, through no fault of their own, they 
were born under circumstances which precluded any 
glimmer of light to shine in on their darkness. 
" Ah ! " but I was told, " God will make it up to them 
hereafter. Of course, He won't judge them as He 
will judge you." 

This seemed to me pure nonsense. I could not 
understand a God who arranged His creation so 
badly. Whilst in London I started out on a search 
for truth. 

Amongst those who accorded me interviews were 
Cardinal Newman and the late Archdeacon Liddon. 
The former was exquisitely sympathetic and patient, 
but he gave me no mental satisfaction. I helped him 
for some weeks in the great dock strike, and then we 
drifted apart for ever. Liddon listened patiently, then 
told me flatly he could not solve the mysteries I sought 



EAST END DAYS AND NIGHTS 51 

to probe. I also was accorded an unsatisfactory in- 
terview with Basil Wilberforce. After a lapse of 
thirty years we met again, though I never recalled to 
him the visit I had paid him in my youth, being sure 
he must have forgotten all about it. I found him 
enormously changed mentally. He had outgrown all 
resemblance to his former mental self. 

At that early period some one happerjed to mention 
to me that a certain Madame Blavatsky had just ar- 
rived in London, bringing with her a new religion. 
My curiosity was at once fired, and I set off to call 
upon her. 

I shall never forget that first interview with a much 
maligned woman, whom I rapidly came to know in- 
timately and love dearly. She was seated in a great 
armchair, with a table by her side on which lay to- 
bacco and cigarette paper. Whilst she spoke her ex- 
quisite taper fingers automatically rolled cigarettes. 
She was dressed in a loose black robe, and on her 
crinkly gray hair she wore a black shawl. Her face 
was pure Kalmuk, and a network of fine wrinkles 
covered it. Her eyes, large and pale green, domi- 
nated the countenance — wonderful eyes in their ar- 
resting, dreamy mysticism. 

I asked her to explain her new religion, and she 
answered that hers was the very oldest extant, and 
formed the belief of five hundred million souls. I 
inquired how it was that this stupendous fact had not 
yet touched Christendom, and her reply was that there 
had never been any interference with Christian thought. 
Though judge of all, Christianity had been judged by 
none. The rise of Japan was a factor of immense 
potency, and in time would open out a new era in the 
comprehension of East by West. Then the meaning 



52 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

would flash upon the churches of the words, " Neither 
in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem." 

I explained to her my difficulties, which she pro- 
ceeded to solve by expounding the doctrines of re- 
incarnation and Karma. They jumped instantly to 
my reason. I there and then found the Just God, 
of whom I had been in search. From that day to this 
I have never had reason to swerve from those beliefs. 
The older I grow, the more experience I gather, the 
more I read, the more confirmed do T become in the 
belief that such provide the only rational explanation 
of this life, the only natural hope in the world to come. 

I have offered those beliefs to very many people 
whom I discovered to be on the same quest as I had 
been. I have never once had them rejected by any 
serious truth-seeker, and I have seen them passed on 
and on by these people to others, forming enormous 
ramifications which became lost to view in the passage 
of time and their own magnitude. 

In these early days there was little literature avail- 
able for the student, but the circle of clever brains 
which rapidly surrounded Blavatsky set to work with 
a will under her guidance, and now, after the lapse 
of thirty years, there is an enormous literature always 
commanding a wide sale, and the little circle that 
gathered round " the old lady " has swollen into very 
many thousands. 

What was the secret of Helena Petrovski Blavat- 
sky's instant success? T have no doubt that it lay in 
her power to give to the West the Eastern answers 
to those problems which the Church has lost. 

In her way Blavatsky was a true missioner. " Go 
forth on your journey for the weal and the welfare of 
all people, out of compassion for the world and the 



EAST END DAYS AND NIGHTS 53 

welfare of angels and mortals," was the command 
given by the Lord Buddha to his disciples, and Christ, 
following the universal ideal, five hundred years later, 
commanded, ''Go ye into all the world and preach 
the Gospel of the whole Creation." 

I began to study those, to me, new doctrines at 
once, and I also took up their occult side, no light task, 
but one of absorbing interest. Not till then did I fully 
realize that in no one human life could that long, long 
path be trodden, in no new-born soul could be de- 
veloped those divine possibilities of which I could catch 
but a fleeting illusive vision. 

" Thou canst not travel in the Path before thou 
hast become the Path itself." Did not the Christ 
warn his followers that the Path must be trodden 
more or less alone ? " Forsake all and follow Me." 
So, also in the Bhagavad Gita it is written: "Aban- 
doning all duties come unto me alone for shelter. 
Sorrow not, I will liberate thee from thy sins." 

" The secret doctrine " written by Blavatsky proved 
a mine of wealth, and I read the volumes through 
seven times in seven different keys. The works of 
A. P. Sinnett, text books then, and now brought up to 
date by expanding knowledge, were extremely helpful. 
For advanced students " The Growth of the Soul " is 
unsurpassed. A very short time elapsed before mental 
food was supplied for practically every branch of 
mysticism and occult development, and students 
flocked into headquarters from all parts of the world. 

It is interesting to remember the two adjoining 
villas in Avenue Road, St. John's Wood, where we 
used to congregate to study, and hear lectures thirty 
years ago, and to look now on the stately buildings 
in Tavistock Square. They are designed by the great 



54 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

architect Lutyens, whose wife, Lady Emily, is an ar- 
dent theosophist. I am glad that I have lived to see 
these doctrines take firm root in the West, and grow 
sc amazingly that in all cities they are now held by 
vast numbers, and even in cases where they have not 
been finally adopted they are acknowledged to be the 
only logical conclusion for those who desire to possess 
a rational belief. I am glad that I can look back 
with love and profound gratitude to Helena P. Blavat- 
sky, the woman who grafted on the West the wis- 
dom of the ages. I have no doubt that she is enabled 
to see the mighty structure raised on her small be- 
ginnings, and doubtless she has met on *' the other 
side " men and women whose debt to her is equally 
as great as mine. 

Blavatsky began by exploding the theory ihat men 
are born equal. If this one life were all, then this 
great error ought, in common justice, to be absolute 
truth, and every man should possess common rights 
in the community, and one man ought to be as good 
as another. If every soul born to-day is a fresh 
creation, who will in the course of time pass away 
from this life for ever, then why is it that one is only 
fitted to obey, whilst another is eminently fitted to 
rule? One is born with a tendency to vice and crime, 
another to virtue and honesty. One is born a genius, 
another is born to idiocy. How, she asked, could a 
firm social foundation ever be built up on this utter 
disregard of nature? How treat, as having right to 
equal power, the wise and the ignorant, the criminal 
and the saint? Yet, if man be born but once it would 
be very unjust to build on any other foundation. 

Re-incarnation implies the evolution of the soul, 
and it makes the equality of man a delusion. In 



EAST END DAYS AND NIGHTS S5 

evolution time plays the greatest part, and through 
evolution humanity is cHmbing. " Souls while eternal 
in their essence are of different ages in their individu- 
ality." 

Many of us must know people who though quite 
old in years are children in mind. Men and women 
who having arrived at three score years and ten are 
still utterly childish and inconsequent. They are 
young souls who have had the experiences of very few 
earth lives. Again, we all know children who seem 
born abnormally old. Infant prodigies, musicians, cal- 
culators, painters who have brought over their genius 
from a former life. 

I remember once meeting with a curious experience, 
which is not very easy to describe. It was an ex- 
perience more of feeling than of seeing. 

I was standing in Milan Cathedral. In front of 
me and behind was gathered a crowd of peasants. 
High Mass was being celebrated, and all the seats were 
occupied. 

After a few moments I began to feel a curious 
sensation of being intently watched. Some pene- 
trating influence was probing me through and through, 
with a quiet but intensely powerful directness. I had 
the sensation that my soul was being stripped bare. 
I looked round, but could see nothing to account for 
my sensation. Every one seemed intent on their de- 
votions. I began to wonder if some malicious old 
peasant was throwing over me the spell of the evil 
eye, but again my feelings were not conscious of an 
evil intent; it was more an absorbed speculation di- 
rected towards me. Some one was probing my soul, 
speculating on my spiritual worth or worthlessness, 
with an intensely earnest yet cold calculation. 



56 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

Just in front of me stood a peasant woman of the 
poorest class. Her back was towards me, and over 
her shoulder hung a baby of not more than a year old. 
Suddenly I met the eyes of the child full. Then I 
knew. As a psychological experience it was most in- 
teresting, but it sent a little thrill of creepiness through 
me. 

The baby did not withdraw its gaze, but continued 
leisurely to look me through and through. The eyes 
were large and gray, the expression that of a contem- 
plative savant, with a faint dash of irony in their 
glance. I do not pretend to be anything but what is 
now called " psychic," but I am certain that those 
windows of the soul, with that age-long experience 
flooding out of them, would have arrested the most 
material person. My husband, who is accustomed to 
my " flights of imagination," was very much struck 
by that look of maturity, that suggestion of seonic 
knowledge. 

Blavatsky taught me to look on man as an evolving 
entity, in whose life career births and deaths are re- 
curring incidents. Birth and death begin and end only 
a single chapter in the book of life. She taught me 
that we cannot evade inexorable destiny. I made my 
present in my past. To-day I am making my future. 
In proportion as I outwear my past, and change my 
present abyssmal ignorance into knowledge, so shall 
I become free. 

I have often heard Blavatsky called a charlatan, 
and I am bound to say that her impish behavior often 
gave grounds for this description. She was foolishly 
intolerant of the many smart West End ladies who 
arrived in flocks, demanding to see spooks, masters, 



EAST END DAYS AND NIGHTS 57 

elementals, anything, in fact, in the way of phenomena. 

Madame Blavatsky was a born conjuror. Her 
wonderful fingers were made for jugglers' tricks, and 
I have seen her often use them for that purpose. I 
well remember my amazement upon the first occasion 
on which she exhibited her occult powers, spurious 
and genuine. 

I was sitting alone with her one afternoon, when 
the cards of Jessica, Lady Sykes, the late Duchess of 

Montrose and the Honorable Mrs. S. (still living) 

were brought in to her. She said she would receive 
the ladies at once, and they were ushered in. They 
explained that they had heard of her new religion, 
and her marvelous occult powers. They hoped she 
would afford them a little exhibition of what she 
could do. 

Madame Blavatsky had not moved out of her chair. 
She was suavity itself, and whilst conversing she 
rolled cigarettes for her visitors and invited them to 
smoke. She concluded that they were not particularly 
interested in the old faith which the young West called 
new ; what they really were keen about was phenomena. 

That was so, responded the ladies, and the burly 
Duchess inquired if Madame ever gave racing tips, or 
lucky numbers for Monte Carlo? 

Madame disclaimed having any such knowledge, but 
she was willing to afford them a few moments' amuse- 
ment. Would one of the ladies suggest something 
she would like done? 

Lady Sykes produced a pack of cards from her 
pocket, and held them out to Madame Blavatsky, who 
shook her head. 

" First remove the marked cards," she said. 



58 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

Lady Sykes laughed and replied, " Which are 
they?" 

Madame Blavatsky told her, without a second's hesi- 
tation. This charmed the ladies. It seemed a good 
beginning. 

" Make that basket of tobacco jump about," sug- 
gested one of them. 

The next moment the basket had vanished. I don't 
know where it went, I only know it disappeared by 
trickery, that the ladies looked for it everywhere, 
even under Madame Blavatsky's ample skirts, and that 
suddenly it reappeared upon its usual table. A little 
more jugglery followed and some psychometry, which 
was excellent, then the ladies departed, apparently 
well satisfied with the entertainment. 

When I was once more alone with Madame Blavat- 
sky, she turned to me with a wry smile and said, 
"Would you have me throw pearls before swine?" 

I asked her if all she had done was pure trickery. 

" Not all, but most of it," she unblushingly replied, 
" but now I will give you something lovely and real." 

For a moment or two she was silent, covering her 
eyes with her hand, then a sound caught my ear. I 
can only describe what I heard as fairy music, ex- 
quisitely dainty and original. It seemed to proceed 
from somewhere just between the floor and the ceiling, 
and it moved about to different corners of the room. 
There was a crystal innocence in the music, which sug- 
gested the dance of joyous children at play. 

" Now I will give you the music of life," said 
Madame Blavatsky. 

For a moment or two there fell a trance-like silence. 
The twilight was creeping into the room, and seemed 
to bring with it a tingling expectancy. Then it seemed 



EAST END DAYS AND NIGHTS 59 

to me that something entered from without, and 
brought with it utterly new conditions, something 
incredible, unimagined and beyond the bounds of rea- 
son. 

Some one was singing, a distant melody was creep- 
ing nearer, yet I was aware it had never been distant, 
it was only becoming louder. 

I suddenly felt afraid of myself. The air about me 
was ringing with vibrations of weird, unearthly music, 
seemingly as much around me as it was above and 
behind me. It had no whereabouts, it was unlocatable. 
As I listened my whole body quivered with wild ela- 
tion, and the sensation of the unforeseen. 

There was rhythm in the music, yet it was unlike 
anything I had ever heard before. It sounded like a 
Pastorale, and it held a call to which my whole being 
wildly responded. 

Who was the player, and what was his instrument? 
He might have been a flautist, and he played with a 
catching lilt, a luxurious abandon that was an incar- 
nation of Nature. It caught me suddenly away to 
green Sicilian hills, where the pipes of unseen players 
echo down the mountain sides, as the pipes of Pan 
once echoed through the rugged gorges and purple 
vales of Hellas and Thrace. 

Alluring though the music was, and replete with 
the hot fever of life, it carried with it a thrill of dread. 
Its sweetness was cloying, its tenderness was sensuous. 
A balmy scent crept through the room, of wild thyme, 
of herbs, of asphodel and the muscadine of the wine 
press. It enwrapt me like an odorous vapor. 

The sounds began to take shape, and gradually 
mold themselves into words. I knew I was being 
courted with subtlety, and urged to fiy out of my 



6o GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

house of life and join the SaturaaHa Regna. The 
player was speaking a language which I understood, 
as I had understood no tongue before. It was my 
true native tongue that spoke in the wild ringing lilt, 
and I could not but give ear to its enchantments and 
the esctasy of its joy. 

My soul seemed to strain at the leash. Should I 
let go? Like a powerful opiate the allurement en- 
folded me, yet from out its thrall a small insistent 
voice whispered " Caution ! Where will you be led : 
supposing you yield your will, would it ever be yours 
again ? " 

Now my brain was seized with a sense of panic 
and weakness. The music suddenly seemed replete 
with gay sinfulness and insolent conquest. It spoke 
the secrets which the nature myth so often murmurs 
to those who live amid great silences, of those dread 
mysteries of the spirit which yet invest it with such 
glory and wonderment. 

With a violent reaction of fear I rose suddenly, 
and as I did so the whole scene was swept from out 
the range of my senses. I was back once more in 
Blavatsky's room with the creeping twilight and the 
far off hoarse roar of London stealing in at the open 
window. I glanced at Madame Blavatsky. She had 
sunk down in her chair, and she lay huddled up in deep 
trance. She had floated out with the music into a 
sea of earthly oblivion. Between her fingers she held 
a small Russian cross. 

I knew that she had thrust me back to the world 
which still claimed me, and I went quietly out of the 
house into the streets of London. 

On another occasion when I was alone with Madame 



EAST END DAYS AND NIGHTS 61 

Blavatsky she suddenly broke off our conversation by 
lapsing into another language, which I supposed to be 
Hindustanee. She appeared to be addressing some 
one else, and on looking over my shoulder I saw we 
were no longer alone. A man stood in the middle of 
the room. I was sure he had not entered by the door, 
window or chimney, and as I looked at him in some 
astonishment, he salaamed to Madame Blavatsky, and 
replied to her in the same language in which she had 
addressed him. 

I rose at once to leave her, and as I bade her good- 
by she whispered to me, " Do not mention this." 
The man did not seem aware of my presence; he took 
no notice of me as I left the room. He was dark in 
color and very sad looking, and his dress was a long, 
black cloak and a soft black hat which he did not 
remove, pulled well over his eyes. 

I found out that evening that none of the general 
staff were aware of his arrival, and I saw him no 
more. 

I remember clearly the first night that Annie Besant 
came to headquarters as an interested inquirer. She 
arrived with the socialist, Herbert Burrows. Ma- 
dame Blavatsky told me she was destined to take a very 
great part in the future Theosophical movement. At 
that time such a thing seemed incredible, yet it has 
come to pass. 

About this period I went to live in the East End 
of London, Haggerston and Whitechapel, where I 
had a night shelter of my own. There I saw into what 
surroundings children were born, how they grow up, 
and how their parents live and die. I have seen so 
much of the lives of the outcast poor that I can feel 



62 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

nothing but the most passionate pity for them, even 
though I can now look upon them as souls just be- 
ginning to climb the ladder of evolution. 

My night shelter w^as for women only, and was 
purposely of the roughest description. The floor was 
bare concrete, and round the walls were heaps of 
millers' sacks I had bought cheap, owing to mice hav- 
ing eaten holes in them. 

According to our laws the legal age at which a girl 
can marry is thirteen, and I used to get many of these 
girl wives in for the night, as their lawful husbands 
used to turn them out of doors. I discovered that it 
was no uncommon practice for a man to buy one of 
those children from the parents for a few pence, the 
parents' consent being necessary. The marriage was 
solemnized, and the child wife was used only as a 
drudge to slave for the husband and his mistress, who 
was of a more suitable age to become his mate. 

I used to be very much troubled by women in the 
throes of delirium tremens. They would come in 
quite quietly when the shelter opened, strip, pick up 
a sack and get into it, and then lie down and at once 
go to sleep. After a few hours' dead slumber they 
would get up, raving mad, and disturb all the other 
sleepers. The reason of this peculiar form of D. T. 
was explained to me by a doctor in the neighborhood. 
The publicans kept a pail behind the bar, into which 
was thrown the dregs of every species of liquor sold 
during the day. This concoction was distributed cheap 
at closing time, and its effects were cumulative. 

One night I had a curious experience. The room 
was unusually quiet, and I had closed my eyes, but I 
was not asleep. I opened them, and, in the bright 
light of one unshaded gas jet, I saw a dark figure mov- 



EAST END DAYS AND NIGHTS 63 

ing. Its back was towards me, and I instantly thought 
a plain clothes policeman had entered, no unusual 
occurrence, without my hearing him. In these days 
detectives used often to escort the West End ladies 
on slumming expeditions, and they usually called on 
me. Then I saw this figure was clad in dark robes, 
and was very tall. Again I thought, this is some old 
Jew who has crept in, and I was just about to rise and 
eject him, when something suddenly stopped me. 

/ saw through him and beyond him. I then and 
there realized that feeling of hair of one's head rising 
on one's scalp is no mere figment of speech. 

The figure moved softly round the room, it made 
no sound whatever, and as it came to each sleeper it 
bent down, as if closely scrutinizing each face. It 
occurred to me that it was looking for some one. I 
began to dread the moment when the search was over, 
and the figure would turn its face towards me. I 
felt that my hair had turned into the quills of a porcu- 
pine. I wanted to shut my eyes, but dared not. Then 
before that quest was over, the figure straightened 
itself and turned full towards me. My fears instantly 
fell away from me like a fallen mantle, for though I 
knew the visitor had come from the other side, there 
was something so profoundly sad in the pale weary 
face, that compassion quite eclipsed fear. Another 
second and it had vanished. 

I lived in Whitechapel during the dread visitation 
of " Jack the Ripper," and all women at once adopted 
the habit of walking in the middle of the road amongst 
the horses and carts. Fortunately there were no mo- 
tors in those days to add to the confusion. When 
we came to the house or alley we wished to enter, we 
made a sudden dash for it. 



64 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

One night I had occasion to pass the entire night by 
the bedside of a dying prostitute. She Hved in one of 
four rooms, all occupied by the same class, and all 
opening into a court not larger than ten feet by ten. 
I suppose I must have been very tired, for I fell asleep, 
and about five a. m. I woke and found I was alone, 
the woman was dead. I went out into the court, 
hearing a sudden noise of excited voices, and dis- 
covered that " Jack " had been at work in the ad- 
joining room, only separated from mine by a match- 
board partition. Portions of the unfortunate woman 
were neatly arranged on a deal table. I had heard 
absolutely nothing. Later on that same day I re- 
visited the scene, and found a curious contrast. See- 
ing his way to a cheap furnished lodging, a coster had 
married his donah in a hurry, and the wedding break- 
fast was being eaten off the blood-stained table ! 

It was in those days that I developed into a con- 
vinced Suffragist. I saw that until men and women 
came together to improve and mold our civilization, 
very little improvement could be expected. The son 
of the bondwoman is not on a level with the son of the 
free woman, and we saw that the struggle must go on 
until we were accorded the right to govern our own 
lives. 

I could always see the anti's point of view, for, 
had I thought only of my own position as an isolated 
unit, a vote would have seemed to me a needless 
responsibility. No social worker who has penetrated 
to the depths can maintain this attitude, and so, in 
company with all other women workers, I entered on 
the crusade which has just terminated in victory. 
Much as I dislike militancy, I am convinced that it 
hastened our victory by very many years, by bringing 



EAST END DAYS AND NIGHTS 65 

the subject before the world. Also the enormous num- 
ber of idle and, formerly, indifferent women, who 
have rushed into work in answer to their country's 
call, has helped our cause enormously. I have in- 
variably found that directly a woman enters the ranks 
of active labor, her views, however strongly they 
have been opposed to us, at once swing round. Once 
a woman proves for herself the disabilities under which 
we labor, she is at once converted. To the very many 
women who suffered acute physical torture during the 
militant campaign, our easy victory must seem passing 
strange. 



CHAPTER V 

THE MAN IN THE MARYLEBONE ROAD 

IT is thirty years ago since I became a convert to 
Spiritualism. At that time I made up my mind 
that I would attend fifty seances, and if, out of 
that number, I did not come across one that I could 
be absolutely certain was genuine I would attend no 
more. Spiritualism, in itself, never interested me, 
but I was determined to see for myself if there was 
really anything in it. 

I attended twenty-nine seances before I happened 
on one that was absolutely convincing. Several had 
been almost convincing, but a loophole for fraud had 
remained, and so long as that was the case I persevered. 

I went one summer morning to see an old man who 
lived in the Marylebone Road. I was shown up into 
a sunny little room on the first floor. It had neither 
carpet, curtains nor window blind, and it looked on 
the street. The furniture consisted of a plain, un- 
covered deal table in the middle of a clean planked 
floor, and eight plain uncovered deal chairs were 
ranged round the walls. The room was utterly desti- 
tute of ornament, there was not even a clock, and I 
was the only occupant. 

Soon the old man entered, a very ordinary looking 
person, and civilly asked what I wanted. 

I said that I understood he was possessed of psychic 
powers, and I would like to see an exhibition of them. 

He smiled and answered, " My fee is two-and-six 

66 



THE MAN IN MARYLEBONE ROAD 67 

for a quarter of an hour. Choose your own phenome- 
non, and I'll see what I can do." 

I was puzzled at first, and looked round the bare 
walls for inspiration. There was not even a photo- 
graph or picture. Then suddenly I thought of some- 
thing rather silly, 

" Please make those four chairs opposite to us cross 
the floor and mount on to the table," I said. 

The old man drew his chair quite close to mine, 
" Then give me your hand." I removed my glove and 
did as he asked. 

He looked, not at the chairs, but into my face, and 
I at once warned him. 

" I am no good as a subject for hypnotism, so it is 
useless to try." 

He laughed and answered, " I am not a hypnotist, 
but I see you have power. You may as well lend me 
some. You are young, and I am old." 

At that second my attention was distracted by a 
grating sound, and I forgot all about my companion. 
I saw the four chairs leave the wall and advance 
towards the table, in exactly the position, and tilted 
forward, they would be in if a human hand was drag- 
ging them across the floor. There appeared to be four 
invisible hands at the work. Then, one by one, they 
were neatly balanced, one on the top of the other, on 
the table. 

When the manifestation was complete I remembered 
the old man, and looked round at him. He was watch- 
ing the business, as keenly interested as I was. 

" Good boys ! good boys," I heard him murmur. 

" How is it done ? " I asked him. 

He shrugged. "The Petris (spirits) do it. I 
don't." 



68 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

" Then ask ' the Petris ' to put the chairs neatly- 
back again." 

" The Petris " performed this feat very expedi- 
tiously, and I paid two-and-sixpence and departed. 
There was no loophole here for fraud, not a wire, or 
string, or any human manipulation, and I was not 
hypnotized. I never have been. For that sort of test 
I had seen enough. 

Shortly after I witnessed a materialization in broad 
daylight. I was free to move about the room, and 
stand by the medium as she lay bound and deeply- 
entranced. I was free to make any examinations I 
pleased, whilst others present conversed with the spirit, 
and I left the house absolutely convinced of the genu- 
ineness of that phenomenon. 

That was the last test seance I attended, and for 
years afterwards I did not interest myself in spiritual- 
ism, nor did I attend many private sittings. 

Towards the close of the South African War I was 
ordered from " the other side " to begin again, but on 
different lines. I was ordered to be a medium. 

A man whom I barely knew, and who had passed 
over, wished to communicate with his people. This 
put me in a quandary. I hardly knew his people, and 
their social position was not such as could be treated 
unceremoniously by a casual acquaintance, I had 
never heard that they were interested in " other side " 
subjects. The very little I knew of them suggested 
quite the reverse. 

I consulted with my husband. " One cannot," I 
argued, " go up to people who are almost strangers 
and tell them their son wishes to communicate with 
them through me." 

My husband quite saw the difficulty, but it had 



THE MAN IN MARYLEBONE ROAD 69 

always happened that when any one wished to com- 
municate with us, and we paid no attention, we were 
given no peace till we did take heed, and sat down with 
an Ouija board to receive the message. He therefore 
proposed that we should consult Mr. A. P. Sinnett, 
now such a well-known writer on Occultism, and an 
old friend of ours. We therefore laid the matter 
before him. 

His reply was uncompromising. 

" Do as you are told from the other side. It is 
not for you to question or consider the social conse- 
quences to yourselves." 

This advice we immediately followed, and we were 
met with the utmost kindness and sympathetic under- 
standing. Sittings were arranged, communication es- 
tabHshed. Test questions were put, which we did 
not understand, but which were satisfactory to the 
questioners, and for many years the sittings continued 
until the " other side " made arrangements for a 
change of mediums and I was set free for other work. 
I say, set free, because during all those y^ars we had 
held ourselves entirely at the disposal of this wonderful 
spirit, who communicated through me, and it is no 
exaggeration to say that our daily lives, our worldly 
plans, entirely depended upon his wishes. He had his 
own work to do, and our earth lives were always 
arranged to suit his convenience. 

About the same time as the above experience began 
my husband was disturbed by noises in his library, 
and he came to the conclusion that some one had some- 
thing to say and was determined to say it. One 
evening, when the disturbance prevented serious read- 
ing, we sat down with the Ouija board. The result 
was as follows — 



70 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

A spirit who purported to be a well-known soldier 
of fortune who had lately committed suicide, desired 
to give a message. This astonished us, as we had 
known him only slightly, and we wondered why he 
had chosen to bestow his attentions on us. He said 
he was very unhappy because he owed a certain sum 
of money to a friend, whom I will call B. This money 
B. could have refunded to him if he would com- 
municate with a certain London address, which the de- 
parted soldier gave us in full. 

We knew B., and knew that he had been a close 
friend of the departed. We also knew that B. was 
on the Gold Coast. We promised, however, to send 
him the message, and that was the last we ever heard 
of the soldier. 

My husband wrote to B. on the Gold Coast simply 
giving him the message and leaving it at that. We 
were sure B. was an absolute skeptic. He was! and 
did nothing till his return to England three years later, 
when he applied at the address which he happened 
to have kept, and received his money. 

I first became interested in Occultism, not only 
through my own very early experiences, but through 
hearing as a mere child that my grandfather, Robert 
the younger of the two well-known publishing brothers, 
W. and R. Chambers, had investigated spiritualism to 
his entire satisfaction. 

In those days, about i860, scientific men did not 
trouble about occult subjects, which were deemed be- 
neath their notice. Science was so strictly orthodox 
that my grandfather published his " Vestiges of Crea- 
tion " anonymously. It created an enormous sensa- 
tion, and upon that book and the writings of Lamarck, 
Darwin founded his " Origin of Species." Robert 



THE MAN IN MARYLEBONE ROAD 71 

Chambers determined to go to America and investigate 
for himself the reported marvelous happenings there. 
He had sittings with all the renowned mediums, 
bringing to bear upon their phenomena the acumen of 
his scientific mind, and he returned to Europe a con- 
vinced believer. He carried on regular sittings with 
Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall and other intellectuals, and 
with General Drayson, then a young beginner who 
went very far in his investigations before he died. 

About the year 1885 I happened to be staying at 
Hawarden with Mr, and Mrs, Gladstone, and the only 
other guest, outside the family party, was the late 
Canon Malcolm McColl, through whose instrumen- 
tality I became a member of the Psychical Society. 

McColl was a most interesting personality, a leading 
light on matters occult, and a famous recounter of 
ghost stories. 'He was also persona grata in the Glad- 
stone household, and Mrs. Gladstone often spoke to 
me of their deep love for him. 

I forget now what led up to the subject, but one 
night, when we were sitting talking, I told Mr. Glad- 
stone that my grandfather, Robert Chambers, had been 
a convinced spiritualist. The Canon at once tried to 
draw the G.O.M., and to our mutual amazement his 
arguments in favor of the return of the disembodied 
soul to earth were met by concurring short ejacula- 
tions, such as "Of course! Naturally! Why, cer- 
tainly ! " 

Then quite suddenly Mr. Gladstone began to prove 
to us that the old Biblical scribes were convinced 
spiritualists. From his intimate knowledge of the 
Bible he quoted text after text in support of his con- 
tention. " Here He worked no wonders because the 
people were wanting in faith," he compared to the 



72 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

present day medium's difficulty in working with skep- 
tics. When Christ asked, "Who has touched Me? 
Much virtue has passed out of Me," He but spoke aS 
many a modern healer speaks on feeling a failure of 
power. " Try the spirits whether they be of God," 
is what all spiritualists of to-day should practice 
rigorously. 

Conan Doyle, in his book, " The New Revelation," 
touches upon those facts, and it was only on reading 
his book with profound interest that I remembered 
the impressive talk I had so many years ago with 
Mr. Gladstone. As Conan Doyle truly says, " The 
early Christian Church was saturated with spiritual- 
ism." 

What, it may be asked, is the value to a woman 
of psychic experiences, whose reality may be convinc- 
ing to herself, but never to others? 

Firstly, there is this enormous value for me, that 
certain psychic experiences I have had make a future 
existence, after so-called death, a certainty. 

Secondly, other varieties of psychic phenomena have 
furnished me with unmistakable proof that I possess 
an immortal soul. 

Thirdly, still other varieties of experiences have 
provided me with the implicit belief in a God, who is 
in actual touch with Humanity. 

Again, all soul experiences, begotten from out the 
supreme mystery of Being, show us that our real life 
is not contained in our present normal consciousness, 
but in a vastly wider, grander plane, which, as yet, is 
but dimly sensed by the few. 

Those who have bathed in " the light invisible " 
can bring glory to those in gloom. They visit, but 
no longer live in the day. Their glory is in the night. 



i 



THE MAN IN MARYLEBONE ROAD 73 

when they walk with the Immortals, and bear with 
them the golden lamps of life eternal. Those who 
have realized the powers within, powers which not 
only are the pillars of infinite harmony, but the main- 
spring of eternal life, have builded on a rock which no 
tempest can destroy. 

" 'Tis time 
New hopes should animate the world, 
New light should dawn from new revealings to a race 
Weighed down so long." 

Paracelsus. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE GHOST OF PRINCE CHARLIE 

SCOTLAND in the autumn of the pre-war days 
was a very gay place. The big country houses 
were filled with shooting parties, and for the 
Autumn Meetings, Ayr races, Perth races, and games, 
The Inverness Gathering, etc. The dates were so ar- 
ranged that one could go the round, and thus dance 
through several weeks. I used to go regularly to 
Inverness, and afterwards visit friends in the sur- 
rounding neighborhood. One of the most delightful 
houses to visit was Tarbat, belonging to the Countess 
of Cromartie. Any one who has read her unique 
books must have come to the conclusion that Lady 
Cromartie is a mystic of no ordinary type, but only 
those who know her intimately are aware how pre- 
dominating in her character is this inborn mysticism. 
I first remember the two sisters, Lady Sibell and 
Lady Constance Mackenzie, hanging on to their 
father's arms as they walked about Folkestone. They 
were then tiny tots, and I was staying with their 
mother, the beautiful Lilian, daughter of Lord Mac- 
donald of the Isles. Beautiful was the only word to 
describe Lord Cromartie's wife — and Lily seemed the 
most suitable name that could have been bestowed 
upon her. She was intensely musical and interested 
in ghosts. Born the daughter of a Highland chief- 

74 



THE GHOST OF PRINCE CHARLIE 75 

tain she understood how to live the life of a great 
Scottish noblewoman. She was always very kind to 
me, and I used to stay with her very often. 

In 1893 Lord Cromartie died, and his eldest 
daughter, Lady Sibell, became Countess of Cromartie 
in her own right — the title going in the female line. 
As a child the young Countess had been a great reader. 
I remember she used often to be missing, and found 
in some quiet room buried in a book. To this day 
she has the faculty of so absorbing herself in a book 
that no amount of talking and noise in the room pene- 
trates her ears. Lady Constance was quite different, 
devoted to out-of-door life, and I shall never forget 
how adoring the old people on the properties were to 
her, and how she loved them. One sterling and un- 
usual quality she had. I never heard her say an un- 
kind word of any one. 

In 1899 the Countess of Cromartie married Major, 
now Colonel Blunt, and she has three fine children, 
two boys and a girl. 

One of the most remarkable facts about her is her 
agelessness. She never alters with the years. Her 
white delicate skin, her girlish figure and dark glowing 
eyes, always retain their look of extreme youth. 

I have said that her mysticism must at once become 
apparent to the readers of her books, but to those, 
who like myself have known her from childhood, her 
psychic powers have always been extraordinary. 

I remember one autumn staying at Tarbat with 
only a very few other guests, I forget now who they 
all were. It had been a dead, still day. One of those 
sad, brooding days one gets so often in the north. In 
the afternoon, when we were out walking, Lady 
Cromartie said suddenly to me and a Miss Drummond, 



76 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

whom we were both very fond of, *' There is going to 
be an earthquake to-night." 

We received this piece of information as a joke, 
and I thought nothing more of the matter till tea-time, 
when a gorgeous sunset was illuminating the heavens. 
As we were standing at the window looking out at it 
we were all startled by a tremendous roar, more like 
a very loud peal of thunder than anything else, yet we 
knew, by the look of the sky, that it could not have 
been thunder. Every one offered a different opinion 
as to what the noise could mean, but Lady Cromartie 
calmly said, " The noise is in the earth, not in the sky ; 
it is the forerunner of the earthquake." 

We now began to take this earthquake business 
more seriously. Sibell Drummond, also very psychic, 
said she knew the noise came from the interior of the 
earth, and that very early that morning she had heard 
the same sound, only much more distant. We asked 
Lady Cromartie how she could possibly tell that an 
earthquake was coming. Such convulsions are not 
common enough in Scotland to admit of lucky guesses. 

" I can tell those things of Nature ; something in 
me is akin to them," she explained. " It is quite cer- 
tain this earthquake will come before morning." 

As the sun went down the quiet weather changed, 
and by bed-time it was blowing such a gale that we 
forgot all about Lady Cromartie's prophecy. At one 
o'clock in the morning, when we were all asleep, the 
earthquake arrived, and awakened us all instantly. 
My bed rocked, and the china clattered, and I heard 
a big picture near my »bed move out from the wall 
and go back again. Some of us got up, but there was 
only the one sharp shock. In the morning we heard 
that considerable damage had been done. Several 



THE GHOST OF PRINCE CHARLIE 77 

houses and stables had been razed to the ground, and 
some animals killed and people injured. 

Another curious incident I remember happening 
during a visit to Tarbat. 

At breakfast one morning Lady Cromartie told us 
that she had a very vivid dream just before daylight. 
She dreamed that if she went into a certain room in 
the house she would find some jewels that had been 
hidden there. She seemed to have been told this in 
her sleep by some one she did not know. The room 
was indicated, but not the spot where the jewels lay. 
The present Duke of Argyll, always keenly alive to 
psychic phenomena, was of our party, and he at once 
proposed that directly after we had finished breakfast 
we should all proceed to the room, rarely used, but 
formerly a business room, and make a thorough 
search. 

By the way, I cannot refrain here from suggesting 
what a wonderful book of Scottish ghost stories the 
Duke could give us if he chose. His repertoire was 
endless and most thrilling, and he knew how to tell 
a ghost story. 

After breakfast we adjourned to the room indicated 
in the dream, and began our search. The only likely 
place seemed a large bookcase, full of books, with cup- 
boards beneath. All the doors were locked and key- 
less. A pause ensued whilst keys were fetched from 
the housekeeper's room, and for a long time we could 
find nothing to fit the doors, but at last we were re- 
warded. The cupboards below were opened, disclos- 
ing a quantity of rubbish. Old books, estate maps, 
fishing tackle, every sort of thing, but no jewels. 

At last the Duke, down on his knees fumbling 
amongst the dust, drew forth two tin japanned boxes. 



78 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

He shook them, and the thumping inside proved that 
they were not empty. The trouble was they also were 
locked and keyless. Again there was a scramble to 
fit keys. We were all on the tiptoe of excited expec- 
tation. 

At last both boxes were opened, and there lay the 
jewels. Fine, old-fashioned pieces that had lain there, 
who knows for how long, and probably had belonged 
to Lady Cromartie's grandmother, " the Countess 
Duchess " 3rd Duchess of Sutherland. 

Still another reminiscence of beautiful Tarbat. 

Lady Cromartie asked me to join a shooting party 
she and Major Blunt were giving, to meet Prince 
Arthur of Connaught. 

I arrived one evening in wild winter weather. 
There had been a heavy snowstorm, and the sky 
looked as if there was considerably more to come. I 
found all the other guests had already arrived, and we 
were a very merry party. It was Prince Arthur's 
first " shoot " in the far North, and his first experi- 
ence of what Scotland could provide in the way of 
autumn weather, and he was glad to avail himself of 
a thick woolen sweater of mine, which I was proud to 
present to him. He was perfectly charming to us all, 
and there was, owing to his simplicity, no sense of 
stiffness introduced into our party. That evening, 
after dinner, he was strolling round the room, looking 
at the pictures, and he paused opposite a framed letter, 
written by Prince Charles Edward during the '45 to 
the Lord Cromartie of that time, who was his earnest 
supporter. 

" Why ! " exclaimed Prince Arthur, " that letter is 
written by ' The Pretender,' isn't it? " 

There was no answer. A thrill of horror ran 



THE GHOST OF PRINCE CHARLIE 79 

through the breasts of the ardent Jacobites present. 
Dead silence reigned. 

Then I could stand it no longer. " Please, sir," I 
said, " we all call him Prince Charles Edward Stuart." 

Prince Arthur turned round laughingly. " I beg his 
pardon and all of yours," he exclaimed in the most 
charming manner, and the hearts of all the outraged 
Jacobites warmed to him at once. 

I was just about to creep into bed, very late that 
night, and very tired after my long, cold journey in 
a desperately sluggish train, when Lady Cromartie 
peeped in at my door. Her wonderful dark eyes were 
ablaze, and I knew at once she had something psychic 
to tell me. Her eyes looked like nothing else in the 
world but her eyes, when she is on the track of a ghost, 
or one of her " other side " experiences. 

" I have just seen Prince Charles Edward," she an- 
nounced, 

I took her firmly by the arm. Prince Charles Ed- 
ward means a very great deal to me, and I don't let 
anything pass me by that concerns his beloved memory. 

" Tell me quick. Where did you see him ? " I 
asked. >'^*''' ~ 

" I was just going to get into bed when I saw him 
standing looking at me, at the far end of the room. 
He was smiling, and as I stared back at him he slowly 
crossed the floor, his smiling face always turned to me, 
and vanished through the wall," was Lady Cromartie's 
answer. 

Then I told her of a certain feeling I had experi- 
enced earlier in the evening. At the moment when 
our Jacobite hearts were stung to deep, though fleet- 
ing resentment, we had formed a thought form, power- 
ful enough to reach the spirit of Bonny Prince Charlie 



8o GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

on " the other side." Our spirits had called on him, 
and he had heard and responded. Why not? If we 
believe in the immortality of the soul, the soul of 
Prince Charles Edward surely lives. Where? On 
the Astral plane, where the souls of all must go to 
divest themselves of the lower passions of earth, and 
the veil between the Physical plane and the Astral 
plane is wearing very thin in these days. 

For many of us there are rents through which we 
are permitted to see the old friends who are not lost 
but gone before, and who await us in a sphere where 
we in turn will await the coming of those who follow 
after. Indeed, the time does not now seem to be so 
far distant when so-called death will be pushed one 
stage further back, and the transference of the soul 
from earth to the Astral plane will no longer be treated 
as severance. What then will be termed the severance 
we now call death? It will be the passing of the 
cleansed soul from the Astral plane to the Heaven 
world, for a period of blissful rest before the life urge 
compels the reincarnating ego to take on once more 
the veil of flesh, in a transient human world. 

I doubt if it is possible for an English person to 
comprehend what it means to be a Jacobite. One is 
born a Jacobite or one is not. I was born a Jacobite, 
and I never lose my passionate love and regret for the 
sufferings and sorrows of Prince Charles Edward. 
No female figure in the past attracts me so much as 
does Flora MacDonald. Had I lived during the '45 
I would have worn the white cockade, and parted with 
my last " shift " for the love of Bonny Prince Charlie. 
All very ridiculous, many may say, but there it is. 
That is what it means to be born a Jacobite. 

My grandfather was an ardent Jacobite, and con- 



THE GHOST OF PRINCE CHARLIE 81 

sorted largely with old Jacobite families. The So- 
bieski Stuarts often made their home with him. 
Grand looking men of striking physique and good 
looks. Robert Chambers used to tell a story of the 
ghost Piper of Fingask; the property of a fine old 
Jacobite, Sir Peter Murray Threipland. The baron- 
etcy is now extinct. 

One night, whilst my grandfather was visiting Sir 
Peter, they were sitting at supper in the old dining- 
hall. The two old sisters of Sir Peter, Eliza and 
Jessie, were present. Suddenly the faint strain of 
the pipes was heard in the distance, surely no uncom- 
mon sound in Scotland, where every Laird has his 
own piper to play round the dining-table, yet a sudden 
silence fell upon the little party of four. All ears 
were listening intently, and straining eyes were blank 
to all but the evidence of hearing. The noise grew 
louder, the piper seemed to be mounting the stone 
staircase, yet his brogues made no sound as he as- 
cended. 

Sir Peter dropped his head down into his arms 
folded upon the table. He sought to hide the fear 
in his old eyes. The women sat as if chiseled out of 
granite, gray to the lips. The piper of Fingask had 
come for one of them. Which? Now the piper of 
death was drawing very near, the skirl of his pipes 
had nearly reached the door. In another moment, 
with a full blast of triumph that beat about their 
ears as it surged into the hall, he had passed, and had 
begun his ascent to the ramparts. The skirl was 
dying away into a wail. Miss Eliza spoke : " He's 
come for you, Jessie." There was no response. The 
piper of Fingask was playing a ** Last Lament " now, 
as he swung round the ramparts. 



82 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

True enough he had come for Miss Jessie, and very 
shortly after she obeyed the call. 

To this day there are men and women who never 
forget to offer up their passionate regret for Prince 
Charles before they sleep. I know of one old Scottish 
house where his memory is an ever-present, ever- 
living thing. The shadowy old room is consecrated 
to him. On the walls hang portraits of him, and tro- 
phies of the '15 and the '45 stand round in glass cases. 
On one table lies a worn, white cockade, yellow with 
age, and a lock of fair hair clasped by a band of 
blackened pearls. In a tall slender glass there is al- 
ways, in summer time, a single white rose. 

Above is the portrait of the idol of the present 
house, who gave in the past of their all in life and 
treasure, for the cause they hold so sacred, so dear. 
I cannot look upon that gay, careless, handsome face 
without the tears rising to my eyes. His eyes smile 
into mine. Involuntarily I bend before him. What 
was the power in you, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, 
that drew from countless women and men that wild 
unswerving devotion? Which made light of terrible 
hardships, which followed you faithfully through glen 
and corrie ? What is that power which you still exert 
over those to whom your name is but a memory, but 
who still, when they think on you or look upon your 
pictured face, cry silently in their hearts for the lost 
House of Stuart? "Oh! waes me for Prince 
Charlie!" 

One must be Scotch to understand that the Union 
did nothing to unite England and Scotland. To the 
Scottish plowman the Englishman is still a foreigner, 
whom he dislikes. Scotch and English servants do 
not work well in the same house. To us, Mary Queen 



THE GHOST OF PRINCE CHARLIE 83 

of Scots lived " only the other day," When the 
House of Stuart passed from us our history ended. 

Our old houses are full of ghosts, the atmosphere 
is saturated with the tragic history of the past, the very 
skies seem to brood in melancholy over the soil, v^here 
so many wild bloody scenes were enacted. To the 
Psychic, Scotland is a land not yet emerged from the 
dour savagery of the past. Once, on visiting an 
historic old castle, my host pointed out to me a group 
of seven old trees standing close to the entrance. 

" Seven skeletons lie there," he said. " My grand- 
father went after a neighboring clan who had raided 
his cattle. He brought back seven men with halters 
round their necks and strung them up to those trees. 
Holes were dug beneath, and they all dropped into them 
by degrees, and then the earth was shoveled over them 
again." 

What will become of all those grand old places in 
the future? They are so costly to maintain. I think 
of all those lying around our own Aberdeenshire home ; 
Fyvie Castle, a great stately pile, beautiful to look 
upon always, but more especially so when the red 
fires of a winter sunset blaze upon its many windows, 
and turn to rose the mantling snow on battlements 
and towers, whilst all around is wrapped in a garment 
of spotless white: House of Monymusk, Craigston 
Castle, Craigievar. 

I have just mentioned a few, all have their ghosts, 
and some have a curse upon them. 

A friend of ours came to see us, not very long ago, 
and told us of a horrible experience he had been 
through recently. 

He had been visiting a great house in the North, 
noted in Scottish history. The new Laird had only 



84 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

entered into possession during the last few years, on 
the death of a near relative, who had died from ex- 
cessive drinking, the Scotchman's curse. Our friend 
had heard that this dead Laird " walked," but he had 
not met any one who had actually seen his ghost. 
After spending a pleasant evening with his host, and 
going through many reminiscences of his former visits 
to the house, and to the late Laird, who in spite of his 
fatal propensities had been a gallant gentleman and 
a great sportsman, our friend retired to bed. 

The room he slept in was a large one, and the bed 
faced the door, and a washstand stood on one side of 
it. He remembered the room, having slept in it on 
former occasions. He was roused in the night by 
some one rather noisily fumbling at the handle of his 
door, which was not locked. He sat up in bed and 
called out, "Who is it?" 

There was a full moon riding in a clear, frosty sky, 
and the room was only in semi-darkness. He stared 
at the door, which at that moment burst open, and 
standing in the aperture was a man, the dead Laird. 
Outside, was a long corridor with several windows, 
through which the moonlight poured. Against this 
silvery background stood the huge figure of the late 
Laird. He leaned forward, supporting himself by 
holding with both hands to the framework of the door, 
and with a glowering, half-drunken stare his eyes 
were fixed on the startled occupant of the bed. 

A panic seized our friend, who felt that if that 
menacing figure advanced into the room he would go 
mad. There was only one door, and no other means 
of escape, and very stealthily he slid to the opposite 
side of the bed, and reaching out, seized the water- 
bottle on his washstand. 



THE GHOST OF PRINCE CHARLIE 85 

This action did not pass unnoticed by his terrible 
visitor. Suddenly relaxing his hold on the doorposts, 
he dropped down on his knees, and began rapidly 
crawling on all fours towards the bed, his inflamed 
eyes blazing with anger. 

Our friend did not wait for his arrival. With a 
blood-curdling yell he hurled the water-bottle full at 
his old friend, and leaping from the other side of the 
bed tore to the door and fled down the passage, as if 
pursued by a pack of devils. Hardly knowing what 
he did, he battered with his hands on the door of the 
room he knew to be occupied by his host and hostess, 
shouting out at the same time a call for assistance. 
Then he heard the voice of the wife saying to the 
husband, " It's Charlie. Open the door. I believe 
he's seen poor Angus." 

He had indeed seen " poor Angus," and for the last 
time, he assured us. Old friendship could not stand 
the test of so horrible an apparition. The room was 
empty when he returned to it with his host. Angus 
had gone back again to the land of the shadows, and 
only the scattered fragments of the water-bottle re- 
mained as a souvenir of his visit. 

Several servants had seen Angus, and it was diffi- 
cult to keep the house staffed. One old housemaid, 
who had been in the family many years, had seen him 
frequently, and had even ventured to remonstrate 
v/ith her former master, bidding him go back to his 
shroud and sleep peacefully in his grave like a re- 
spectable man, but apparently to no purpose. Angus 
preferred to " walk " and to terrify all to whom he 
had the power to show himself. 

Speaking of the Duke of Argyll has reminded me 
of some curious occurrences in connection with Lord 



86 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

Colin Campbell. At one time of my life, soon after 
my father's death, I saw a good deal of him. He was 
then studying law and intended later to practice in 
India. This plan he carried out, and in India he 
died, the result of a chill. 

Lord Colin was a very interesting man, a keen 
geologist and something of an artist. There were 
few subjects he was not interested in, and though 
somewhat shy of the subject, he had a decided apti- 
tude for ghosts. 

One day in London he brought to my house a small 
gold cross fixed to a slab of gray marble, and asked 
me if I would keep it for him. He explained that it 
was an exact reproduction of the old stone cross of 
Inverary. He was then living in Argyll Lodge, 
Campden Hill, and I said I should have thought there 
was room enough for it there. I could not under- 
stand why he brought it to me. He looked uneasy 
and said he wished to get rid of it out of the house. 
When pressed to say why, he confessed that there was 
something uncanny about it. He thought it made him 
"see things," and he added, "Garry hates it." 

Garry was a fine, sable collie, devoted to his master 
and he to it. Garry had the misfortune to break his 
leg, and this caused Lord Colin acute distress. The 
leg was set, and the dog lay in a large clothes basket, 
and eventually got well. Garry was just recovering 
when Lord Colin brought me the cross. 

He became more expansive in a few moments, and 
said that he had seen a figure bending over the cross, 
as if to examine it. The figure had a hood, and he 
thought it must be the ghost of a monk. He had seen 
this many times, and Garry often growled, and his hair 
bristled at the very moment when his master caught 



THE GHOST OF PRINCE CHARLIE 87 

sight of the apparition. Anything that distressed the 
dog must be removed, and knowing how interested 
I was in ghosts he had brought the cross to me. 

Of course I was dehghted to have a chance of wit- 
nessing psychic phenomena of any kind, but alas, 
though I kept the cross for years, and only sent it 
lately to the present Duke, I never saw anything in 
connection with it. 

I did, however, see something interesting in con- 
nection with Lord Colin. 

One hot June evening, in London, I was sitting 
alone by the open window. The day had been very 
exhausting; it was one of those hot spells that come 
so often before regular summer sets in, and I was glad 
to rest quietly and do nothing. 

The street was wonderfully quiet at that hour, nine 
o'clock, when all the world of fashion was dining, 
and the daylight was strong enough to read by, had 
I so desired. Suddenly my attention was attracted 
by a slight noise behind me, and glancing round at 
the open door I saw that Lord Colin and his dog had 
just entered the room, as was their habit, unannounced. 
In his hand he carried a huge bunch of white and 
mauve lilac blossoms. I had not expected him that 
evening, but I was very pleased to see him, and ex- 
claimed, " Why, Colin, what a glorious bouquet ! I 
can smell it already." 

He was smiling as he and his dog moved up the 
long room towards me, but he said nothing. I had 
risen and held out my hand, but when about halfway 
across the floor both he and the dog vanished entirely 
and quite suddenly. 

I shall never forget my utter amazement and con- 
sternation. I could not disbelieve the evidence of my 



88 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

own senses, for I was absolutely certain I could still 
smell the lilac, and I had no doubt whatever that I 
had seen Lord Colin and his dog, 

I sat down again and fell to considering the extra- 
ordinary circumstance. I was perfectly well and nor- 
mal, I had not been thinking of Lord Colin, and yet 
in the midst of other thoughts a sound had attracted 
my attention, and looking round I had seen him enter 
with his dog. For the space of quite two minutes 
both had been visible. I got up again and timed the 
whole affair by my wrist watch. The room I sat in 
was very long. I was at one end, and the door at the 
other. It took me just one minute to walk leisurely 
forward over the ground they had covered, before they 
vanished from my sight. 

I sat down again and began to wonder if Lord Colin 
was ill, or was he dead, and why was he carrying lilacs ? 
'Phones were uncommon things in those days; I had 
no means of communication with Argyll Lodge. 

For an hour I sat considering the wonderful vivid- 
ness of my curious experience. The daylight had 
faded into a close, soft twilight, but I wanted no ar- 
tificial hght. Then just as ten o'clock was striking I 
heard a voice in the hall below ; a voice I was sure was 
Lord Colin's, and he was answered by one of my 
servants. Steps sounded on the stairs, and in another 
moment in he walked with Garry, and in his hand he 
carried a big bunch of white and mauve lilacs. 

I stood staring at him in the dim twilight. Was 
this the real man and dog at last? 

" I know it's awfully late to pay a call, but I thought 
you would like some lilac," he exclaimed ; " it's so 
lovely in our garden just now," and he held out the 
flowers. 



THE GHOST OF PRINCE CHARLIE 89 

I took them and bade him be seated. Garry came 
to me and rested his nose on my lap. For a moment 
I could not speak. 

" Aren't you well? " asked Colin, 

Then I recovered myself, but I did not tell him what 
had happened only an hour before. As we talked I 
discovered that he had intended to come at nine o'clock, 
and was just starting when a relative arrived and de- 
tained him. 

On another occasion he told me of a curious dream 
he had as a boy. 

Queen Victoria came to Inverary to pay a visit to 
the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, Lord Colin's parents, 
and it was arranged that the young sons of the house 
should act as pages to Her Majesty. The night of the 
day on which the Queen arrived, Colin dreamed that 
some one whom he did not know came to him and said, 
" To-morrow the Queen will give you twenty shil- 
lings." 

When the boy wakened up in the morning he re- 
membered this dream, and all day long he was on the 
outlook for its fulfillment. The hours passed, but 
though he was often in her presence and kept as close 
to her as he dared, the Queen never produced her purse. 
Just before reentering the house towards evening, she 
suddenly turned to John Brown, her constant atten- 
dant, and said something which Colin did not catch. 
What was his joy on perceiving that surly henchman 
extract from a shabby old purse a filthy Scotch one 
pound note, which he handed to Her Majesty. 

" My little Colin, here is a present for you," said 
the Queen, and making his best bow the boy accepted 
the gift. His dream had come true. 

John Brown was the terror of all the great nobles 



90 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

whom the Queen was pleased to visit. Her Majesty 
took him everywhere with her, and he was her closest 
attendant. Born of the humblest Scotch parents on 
the Estate of Balmoral, he died in the position of a 
potentate in a royal residence. His manners were 
terribly rough and objectionable, and his behavior to 
the gentlemen with whom he constantly came into con- 
tact was insulting to the last degree. He had one 
invariable habit. When the Queen paid a visit natu- 
rally her honored host was in waiting to hand her out 
of her carriage. Brown contrived to nip down from 
his perch at the back of the carriage, just at a certain 
moment, and with a violent push thrust aside the 
prince, duke or peer who sought to do honor to the 
Sovereign. 

Some of the gentlemen about the Court paid him 
very liberally, not for civility, but simply to desist from 
his habitual insults, and it has been said that Disraeli 
discovered some method of conciliation, but Brown 
took an absolute pleasure in insulting all who had 
occasion to approach Her Majesty. Latterly he drank 
very heavily, and when he died, to the unutterable 
relief of all and sundry he bequeathed all his savings 
and possessions, even the watch he wore, to Her Ma- 
jesty. His many poor relatives living in cottages on 
the estate never saw a penny of his money, nor so much 
as a button from his doublet. 



CHAPTER VII 

PILGRIMS AND STRANGERS 

WE are all of us, in this world, strangers and 
pilgrims, and to each human being, in turn, 
and in varied ways, comes the knowledge, 
" A stranger with Thee and a sojourner as all my 
Fathers were." 

Like ships that pass in the night " we exchange 
signals with one another," and pass on our different 
ways through the ocean of life. I think it is the sea 
that most clearly 'brings home to me the transitory 
nature of our pilgrimage. Leaning over the side of 
a ship in mid ocean, and watching a trail of smoke 
from another ship on the horizon, I am always im- 
pelled to wonder about its human cargo. Who and 
what are they, and for what distant shores are they 
bound? Again one sweeps the far horizons only to 
find them empty of aught but a vast tumbling ex- 
panse of waters. Then, without warning, we are 
wrapped in a dense blanket of fog. The sirens sound 
insistently, and are at once answered by ships on every 
side. It is startling to find there are many so near, 
but utterly invisible. In a few minutes we have 
emerged again into distance and clear skies, and again 
there is nothing that meets the eye but the empty 
watery expanse. 

Looking back on my life I can recall many meetings 
with fellow pilgrims that apparently were purely acci- 

91 



92 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

dental, yet they left their mark upon my life. Meet- 
ings such as those, when two souls thrown together by 
the force of circumstances, in quiet far-away places; 
or in the marts of the world, become in a few short 
hours like old and tried friends. How often have I 
heard it said, even after one short hour, " I feel as if 
I had known you all my life." Such I look upon as 
epochs in my pilgrimage, milestones and guiding stars 
on my life's road. Yet the limitations, of such epochs 
are obvious enough. Time on earth is circumscribed, 
still there is subconsciously the instant recognition of 
two kindred souls who hear and remember, who in- 
stinctively know that once, perchance many times be- 
fore, they have landed together on the shores of time, 
from the storm-tossed bark of life. 

It seems strange that those chance meetings should 
have no continuity. I remember one such meeting in 
the East, and how utterly by chance it seemed to come 
about. It lasted for three days, yet after three hours 
I knew more of my fellow pilgrim and he of me 
than we would have known of each other in three 
months at home. We were both quite alone, but I 
remember his recalling the pre-Buddha words written 
a thousand years before the coming of the Christ : 
" Thou shalt not separate thy Being from Being, and 
the rest, but merge the ocean in the drop, the drop 
within the ocean. So shalt thou be in full accord 
with all that lives, bear love to men as though they 
were thy brother pupils, disciples of one teacher, the 
sons of one sweet mother." 

When we bade each other good-by and I boarded 
my ship we told each other we would meet again, but 
instinctively we knew we never should. I have for- 
gotten his name, but all else I can remember very 



PILGRIMS AND STRANGERS 93 

clearly, and the wonderful comradeship two souls, 
drifting together for a second in time, can give each 
other. He gave me the sufi mysticism of Omar 
Khayyam, and I can still see the English face burnt 
dark with eastern suns, under the snowy turban, and 
the brilliant parrot swinging on a palm bough above 
his head. I can still hear the low grave voice reciting 
the quatrains of Persia's astronomer poet, written a 
thousand years ago. They fitted in with our sur- 
roundings : — 

" There was a door to which I found no key. 
There was a veil past which I could not see ! 
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee 
There seemed, and then no more of Me and Thee." 

I suppose we all have many such recollections in 
our lives, and it is impossible (for me) to believe them 
to be a mere matter of chance, for, always on parting, 
I have been conscious that I have received some last- 
ing good, or it has mercifully chanced that I have 
been able to help a stranger and pilgrim on a difficult 
way. 

Again, I remember another interesting meeting. A 
woman was sitting alone on a bench in the outskirts 
of Cairo, and her worn face was turned to the dying 
fires of sunset. She was very shabby and poor look- 
ing, and obviously she was a European. In my casual 
glance I caught something familiar, and after going 
on some paces I felt a compelling force bidding me 
return. I sat down beside her and at once spoke to 
her. I knew who she was when she turned her face 
to me, and the hideous contrast of her past and her 
present appalled me. She does not know to-day that 
I am aware of her real identity. She is in England, 



94 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

and all now is well with her. One can always, as the 
pre-Buddhist taught ns, " Point out the way however 
dim and lost amongst the Host, as does the evening 
star to those who tread their path in darkness." 

Again, it is strange to tell why unknown pilgrims 
should leave their mark upon us for all earthly time, 
pilgrims to whom one has never spoken, and of whom 
one knows nothing. When I was quite a child I 
passed every day through a very quiet and well-to-do 
street of dwelling-houses. At a window behind two 
flower-pots, sat a woman whom I supposed to be sew- 
ing, though her hands were hidden from view. I can 
see her as clearly now as I saw her then, over forty 
years ago in the northern capital. The pale, tragic 
profile, the down-drooped eyelids, the meekly-banded 
hair. I used to wonder about her constantly. She 
possessed me, and interested me at that time more 
than anything else in my life. Even to this day she 
comes unbidden into my mind at frequent intervals. 

Again from my bedroom window in Belgrade I 
used to watch another woman. She came out on her 
balcony twice a day, always at the same hours. She 
put her hands on the rails, and turned her dark, 
southern face up to the skies, and there she would 
stand for an hour, gazing fixedly above. I never once 
saw her eyes drop to the busy street below, and once 
a prisoner, dragging his heavy chains behind him, 
paused and looked up and cried out to her for bread. 
She appeared not to hear him, her rigid attitude never 
relaxed. 

It is the thoughts of such pilgrims, as one conjec- 
tures them to be, that form the interest, or perhaps 
it really is something more, a far-off kinship, stretch- 
ing invisible threads down through the ages. With 



PILGRIMS AND STRANGERS 95 

both those women I had a feeling of kinship. I had 
picked them out of the world's crowd, because of some 
silent influence they exerted over me, the lingering 
power of some far back, forgotten touch, which had 
once drawn us together. I know that in my life I had 
met those " that I have loved long since and lost 
awhile." 

For me there was purpose in those " stars " that 
shine through my life, as looking back they show me 
where I had arrived at the moment of their uprising, 
and their rays pierce the penumbra shadows wherein 
the soul lies hid. Each star showed me the lees in 
the cup of destiny, brought to me a new revelation of 
soul, and elucidated for me something of the mystery 
of life. 

Again, surely there is Divine purpose in those islets 
of friendship which jewel-like stud the gray vesture of 
ordinary existence. They are close, warm, and utterly 
sincere, often for many long years, then they are 
suddenly sundered by the inrush of some invading 
force which cuts them off in their full bloom. Some- 
times the Master Death bids them pass on, sometimes 
the break comes by some utterly trivial, yet inexorable 
fiat of human destiny. 

In the clash of human interests it must needs be 
that pain must come to some. Life cannot be all 
serenity and peace to the pilgrims who toil upon its 
stormy way, its via dolorosa. Such crises teach us the 
just attitude that should prevail in all such trials and 
circumstances. Amiel says, " There is one wrong man 
is not bound to punish, that of which he himself is the 
victim. Such a wrong is to be healed, not avenged." 
For hate there is but one antidote — love. The art of 
forgetfulness is not yet a science, but to forget the evil 



96 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

one has but to remember the good. Love knows 
neither saint nor sinner, for she seeks in every heart 
the hidden gem of good. She thinks no ill, because 
she knows the trials of each one are penalty enough 
for deeds already done. Neither in the case of Death's 
intervention, nor in the case of human misunderstand- 
ing should there be sorrow for lost friendships, though 
there must inevitably be regret. 

Love brings with it suffering, for all who love suffer 
with those they love. Unkindness and injustices are 
hard to bear, and the loss of those we love is a bitter 
pain, but those whose hearts are great enough still 
find others on whom to lavish love. Are there not 
many who need it, and are there not great rewards 
for those who have love to spare. To be required, to 
be appealed to, and turned to as a help and refuge. 
Such are the prizes for those whose hearts are al- 
ways alight with love, who from one flame can kindle 
many. 

When death looses the silver cord, and souls seem 
torn asunder for ever more, there will be sadness of 
spirit. When a break comes, perhaps through third- 
party treachery, there may come the sense of eternal 
severance, but is it eternal? I doubt it. More prob- 
ably there lies before us an existence of clearer judg- 
ment and understanding, of vaster possibilities, in 
which we shall know, even as also we are known. 
Though now we see each other through a glass darkly, 
a day will come when we shall no longer see in part, 
but face to face. When faith, hope and love shall be 
reunited, and we shall realize that the greatest of these 
three is love, which suffereth long, and is kind and 
thinketh no evil. 

Again, there are these loves in one's life, some 



I 



PILGRIMS AND STRANGERS 97 

fleeting, some lasting, that are too sacred to write of, 
and of which one never speaks. The joys and sorrows 
they brought, the prose or poesy of our intercourse 
are graven deep on the heart. Whether it be they 
still walk by our side, or have gone west to rest after 
labor, we must learn to say with the pre-Buddhists 
of old time : " Do not grieve for the living or the dead. 
Never did I not exist for you . . . nor will any one 
of us ever hereafter cease to be." 

Such sacramental hours sanctify the variety of our 
lot, combine the pathos of love and death, and stretch 
through the corridors of memory into the hush and 
shadow of the haunted past; where all the mystery 
of such hours seem gathered for inspiration. There 
linger the symbols of our sojourn here. How potent, 
yet how fragmentary they are ! The scent of a flower, 
the long embrace, the hand held out in vain, the flash 
of recognition, the chime of the clock which altered 
the course of the pilgrimage. The meek hands folded 
on the still breast. Such symbols abide with us like 
the image of a Divine form, some echo of immortal 
music, some lingering word of angels. Their cadences 
come ever back to us from infinite distances, ghostly 
chords and evanescent. Harmonies which come and 
go too fitfully for apprehension. 



CHAPTER VIII 

SOME STRANGE EVENTS 

AFTER my marriage my husband and I passed 
some time in the United States and Canada; 
we then returned to England and took a place 
in Cambridgeshire. We were both very fond of rac- 
ing, and attended all the meetings at Newmarket. 

One day I drove by appointment to the house of a 
neighbor who had asked me to meet Miss Catherine 
Bates, author of that interesting book, " Seen and Un- 
seen." 

Just before I started my husband, half in fun, and 
knowing Miss Bates to be a psychic, said, " Ask her 
what horse is going to win the Cambridgeshire." 

I promised to put the question and drove off. I 
had a most interesting visit, but I totally forgot to ask 
Miss Bates for the winner of the coming race. 

It was not until I was seated in the victoria, ex- 
changing a few parting words with the two ladies 
standing in the doorway to bid me good-by, that I 
suddenly recollected my husband's request. As the 
horses were starting I called out to Miss Bates — 

" Tell me what's going to win * The Cambridge- 
shire?'" 

The answer was prompt and clear : 

" Marco to win, for a place." (I regret I 

cannot remember the name of the second horse.) 

As I drove away I waved my thanks, and directly 

98 



SOME STRANGE EVENTS 99 

I got home I told my husband — " Marco to win, 

for a place." 

He was much interested in this " tip " from so well- 
known a psychic, and of course we backed " Marco 

to win and for a place " for all we were worth. 

I wish I could remember the odds. I only know that 
they were " long." 

The event duly came off, and I wrote to Miss Bates 
thanking her for the good turn she had done us. 

Her reply astounded me. 

She began by saying she had not heard me put any 
question to her regarding the winner of the Cambridge- 
shire, and went on to say that she knew nothing about 
racing, and knew none of the horses' names, therefore 
it was impossible that she could have given me the 
" tip." 

Her hostess cared nothing for racing, and was as 
ignorant as she was upon the subject, but she did 
remember hearing me call out to Miss Bates, " What's 
going to win the Cambridgeshire ? " 

I then questioned our coachman and footman. 
Both distinctly remembered my calling out the ques- 
tion, and both, keen on racing, listened for the reply, 
hut they heard none. 

Where did that answer come from? I cannot tell. 
Was some spirit interested in racing hovering near? 
Did he contrive to drop the " tip " into my mind, open 
at that moment and eager to catch the response? 

A year after the event I have recounted above, I was 
resting one afternoon in the summer-time. I had been 
ill, and was not yet strong enough to lead an ordinary 
life, and I was lying on a sofa in a top floor room. 
The room immediately beneath me was the drawing- 
room, and the weather being hot all the windows were 



loo GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

wide open. The house we inhabited was quite iso- 
lated in its own park, and the village was about half 
a mile distant. My husband was from home, and I 
was alone in that particular part of the house, the 
servants' quarters being at the back, and shut off 
from the rest. 

Out of the absolute quiet suddenly came the sound 
of music. Some one was playing my piano in the 
drawing-room below. This, in itself, caused me irri- 
tation, but no surprise. I was not well enough to en- 
tertain callers at tea, due in half an hour, and I had 
given orders that I would see no one, but it had hap- 
pened before that the musical neighbors had called, and 
whilst waiting for me had sat down to the piano. 

I was too annoyed to hasten downstairs. I lay 
waiting for the butler to come to me and inform me 
why my orders had been disobeyed. Meanwhile I 
listened to the music, and wondered greatly who the 
brilliant pianist could be. I did not recognize the 
music, but it sounded quite modern, and requiring a 
great amount of technique. The player was, how- 
ever, a most brilliant performer, who had acquired 
considerable skill. " Evidently a professional," I 
thought, and wondered all the more who it could pos- 
sibly be. 

Still there were no signs of the ascending butler, 
and time continued to pass. I began to feel obstinate, 
and determined to remain where I was, until I was 
correctly informed of the caller's identity. 

The music steadily continued, every note borne to 
my ears as clearly as if I had been in the room with 
the performer, " Very wonderful music, but soul- 
less," I concluded, and though my curiosity was grow- 



SOME STRANGE EVENTS loi 

ing every moment my obstinacy prevailed, and I re- 
mained where I was. At last, after quite twenty min- 
utes, the music suddenly stopped ; it broke off in the 
middle of a movement. 

I rose at once, and went downstairs feeling very 
cross. I pushed open the drawing-room door and 
entered. It was absolutely empty, but the piano, 
which had not been opened for several weeks, was open 
now. I went to the window which commanded the 
avenue; not a soul was in sight. Then I rang the 
bell, and when the butler entered the following dia- 
logue took place : — 

"Who was the caller who has just been?" 
" There have been no callers to-day, madam." 
" But surely you heard the piano being played ? " 
" We heard a lot of music, but we thought it was 
you playing, madam." 

"Then you all heard it?" 
" All of us in the hall heard it, madam." 
I left it at that. Suddenly it came to me that I 
had better not push my inquiries further. Until that 
second it had never occurred to me that the performer 
might be a disembodied spirit. 

The butler did not leave the matter alone, but made 
every inquiry at the Lodge, and also of the out-door 
servants, but nothing came of it. No one had seen 
a stranger, and the silver was intact. My maid told 
me some time afterwards that the household had 
shaken down to the conviction that I had really been 
the performer, and that my recent illness had caused 
me to forget the fact. I let this conviction remain 
unshaken, but I marveled at the lack of musical dis- 
crimination my household displayed. The disparity 



102 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

between my strumming and the brilliant execution of 
my spirit guest was so vast that I could not even feel 
flattered by their mistake. 

A year or two after we took a cottage on the 
Thames, and there, during our summer visits, I had 
an uncomfortable time. 

There was something wrong with the sideboard end 
of the dining-room. For a long time I could not make 
out what it was. My attention was constantly being 
attracted to the spot. If I passed the door I thought 
instantly of the sideboard. In plain language, I was 
constantly being invited, by some invisible person, to 
come in and have a drink. If I was putting anything 
away in the sideboard the suggestion was always 
very strong. On the outside stood a tantalus of spirits 
and soda water, ready to refresh any calling boating 
men. Inside the cupboards were wine decanters. 

I always resisted the suggestion, I suppose because 
I did not happen to want anything to drink — for 
years I have been a total abstainer, and at the time I 
certainly did not realize the menace of those sugges- 
tions. 

Now and again I caught sight of a small oblong 
gray cloud hovering in front of the sidbeoard, but it 
was not till many months afterwards that I saw some- 
thing much more definite. The gray shadow had be- 
come the clearly defined shade of a small woman. 
She hovered about the spot in a wavering, undecided 
manner. It was apparent that she was seeking some- 
thing. One day, in a flash, I recognized the truth, 
The suggestion came from her. She was inviting me 
to drink with her. 

My husband and I set to work to find out who this 
unfortunate woman had been when she dwelt on earth. 



SOME STRANGE EVENTS 103 

We discovered a very sad story. She had been a 
celebrity of the half world, and I had actually seen 
her in the flesh. She had traveled to Monte Carlo 
one winter in the next sleeping compartment to ours, 
and she had lived for some years in our riverside 
cottage. Latterly she had fallen an incurable victim 
to drinking, and had died of it. Poor little soul; my 
heart went out to her in deepest pity, but I was glad 
to leave the cottage forever, when in 1898 we went to 
live at my husband's place, Balquholly, Aberdeen- 
shire. 

Some people, perhaps once in their lives, become 
sensitive enough to recognize a visitor from the Astral 
plane. If the occasion is not repeated they believe 
themselves to have been victims of hallucinations. 
Others find themselves seeing and hearing, with in- 
creasing frequency, something to which those around 
them are blind and deaf. They realize, in fact, that 
they are in touch with the Astral plane, the region 
lying next to our world of dense matter, and often 
some Astral entity on the lowest levels of that plane 
is continuously striving to work through their medium- 
ship. The world is very far from realizing this 
danger. What are those entities working for? 

The man or woman who has led a decently pure 
life on earth will have no attraction to the lowest 
levels, contiguous with earth, of the Astral plane, and 
will, at so-called death, pass swiftly through it. But, 
alas ! the vast majority have by no means freed them- 
selves from all lower desires before passing over, and 
it takes a considerable time before the evil forces gen- 
erated on earth work themselves out on " the other 
side." 

The length of man's detention on the lower level 



104 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

will depend entirely on the earthly life he has lived, 
and the quality of the desires he has indulged in. 

The desires of a drunkard, a debaucher, are as strong 
after death as before. The present Bishop of London 
made that very clear in one of his Easter addresses, 
but the subject finds it impossible, v^ithout a physical 
body, to gratify his lusts. Occasionally it can be done 
in a vicarious manner, when he is able to seize on a 
like minded person and obsess him or her, or when he 
finds a medium who consciously or unjconsciously pan- 
ders to his desires. For this reason I hold it to be 
imperative for safety's sake, that every genuine me- 
dium should be a total abstainer. 

How often one is asked the question : " What is a 
medium ? " 

It is a difficult question to answer in a few words. 
I should put it thus — 

A medium is one whose principles, physical, mental, 
spiritual, are so loosely bound together that an Astral 
entity can draw from him without difficulty the mat- 
ter it requires for manifestation. The very essence 
of mediumship is the ready separability of the prin- 
ciples. 

In the case of the poor little woman I have men- 
tioned, she was fortunate enough not to meet with 
(in me) a sensitive, through whom her passion could 
be vicariously gratified. 

Such unfulfilled desires gradually burn themselves 
out, and the suffering caused in the process no doubt 
goes to work off evil Karma generated in the past life. 
It is the soul that desires, the body is but the tool to 
grasp the desire, and after death old lusts crowd upon 
the departed. Thirsty with no throat; sensual with 



SOME STRANGE EVENTS 105 

no body to grip the foul desire, soon it is learned that 
the worst evils and the hardest to undo have been 
woven out of the mind. 

Here is another story or two relating to one of the 
most puzzling mysteries in ghost lore — the phenom- 
ena of temporary hauntings. 

Why do ghosts suddenly take possession of a house 
with which, in their incarnate days, they have had no 
connection ? 

Such ghosts differ from those only seen once. They 
take up their abode in a dwelling which has absolutely 
no traditions of haunting. They will be seen and 
heard on many occasions, for a few months, possibly 
for a few years. They will then suddenly depart, 
and be seen or heard no more. 

Such apparitions cannot readily be traced to any 
defunct friend or member of the family. They have 
no known connection with the house in which they 
appear, and no one can form the faintest conception 
why they should suddenly elect to " walk " within 
those four walls, which hitherto have been normal and 
free from " other side " visitors, 

A case of this description happened to my youngest 
brother, who, before he bought his present country 
house, lived in a detached, new building, not far from 
the Dean Bridge, in Edinburgh. 

He had occupied this house for some years previous 
to his experience, and had neither heard nor seen 
anything of a spooky nature. The manifestation only 
lasted for a few weeks. Nothing in the form of a 
ghost was seen, but much was heard. 

I will give the story in my brother's own words: 



io6 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

" On a certain evening, a year or two ago, I went 
out after dinner to visit some friends, and returned 
home about half -past eleven. 

" Not feeling inclined to go to bed, I took up a 
book and sat down to read for half an hour. 

" About a quarter-past midnight I suddenly became 
aware that stealthy footsteps were coming upstairs. 
Looking at my watch I thought it very strange that 
any of the maids should be still up at such a late 
hour. 

" The door was well ajar, and I arose from my 
chair, listening intently, as I crossed the room. The 
footsteps were now quite distinct, and I knew at once 
they were not those of any woman. They were the 
stealthy footsteps of a man, and naturally I at once 
concluded that he was a burglar. 

" I calculated swiftly that he would either enter the 
room in which I stood, or he would go on and up the 
next flight of stairs to the bedrooms. In any case, he 
had to be faced and caught. I realized that, and I 
much regretted I had nothing at hand which would 
help me, should he prove to be armed. 

" There was, however, no time for further thought. 
Every second brought him nearer, and taking up a 
position just behind the door, I waited till he arrived 
on the landing, and until he came to the spot when 
he must either turn in, or go on upstairs. 

" The moment came, almost at once. With a sud- 
den bound I sprang out to close with him. Lo! and 
behold! nothing was to be seen! Nothing was now 
to be heard, except the ticking of a clock. 

" I stood still and absolutely astounded. The foot- 
steps had been no trick of imagination, I was very 
sure of that. Had I not heard them stealthily begin- 



SOME STRANGE EVENTS 107 

ning the ascent of the stairs, and grow louder the 
nearer they approached me? 

" I mopped my brow. Would any self-respecting 
burglar have come on, and up a lighted staircase, and 
along a landing towards a room which he must have 
known was still occupied, as the light shone through 
the half-open door? Are burglars ever as rash as 
that? 

" Then I reminded myself that as there was no 
burglar in the case my speculations were mere waste 
of time. 

" I put out the lights, and went to bed in a very 
uncomfortable frame of mind. 

" The next day, when I returned home from busi- 
ness, my housekeeper informed me that a strange man 
had been walking about the house. She had not seen 
him, though she had looked for him — that was the 
curious part of it, but she had heard him quite dis- 
tinctly, several times, and she didn't like it one little 
bit. Not that she was frightened ! Oh ! dear no, but 
it was uncanny, and she thought she had better tell 
me. I thanked her and assured her that there was 
nothing to fear. The house was quite new, and un- 
canny things never happen in new houses. I advised 
her not to mention the subject to any one but me, and 
told her that I was not going out again that evening. 

" After dinner I settled down in my room, to wait 
for the footsteps I instinctively felt sure would return. 
I kept the lights burning on stairs and landing, and set 
the door half open, placing my chair in such a position 
that I could see any one who passed outside the room 
on the landing. This time I did not think of arming 
myself. I had come to the firm conclusion that the 
sounds came from no person living in the flesh. As 



io8 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

no house adjoined mine I had no ' next door ' on 
which to lay the blame for the disturbance. 

" Sure enough, about an hour earlier this time, the 
unknown, unseen visitor began his ascent of my stair- 
case. I cannot describe my feelings during those 
moments of waiting for ' it ' to pass. I can only say 
they were intensely [unpleasant, and I hope I may 
never again have to confess myself to be a wretched 
coward. A burglar would at that moment have ap- 
peared to me in the guise of a dear friend. 

" However, the thing had to be faced, there was no 
one else that I could put onto the job, and so I simply 
sat still and waited, with my eyes fixed on the landing 
outside. The steps came on, distinct enough, and 
growing nearer and louder. They arrived on the 
landing, they reached my door, they passed, and pro- 
ceeded to mount the next flight of steps to the bed- 
rooms. I had seen absolutely nothing. 

" I rose and walked out on to the landing, and looked 
up at the brightly lit staircase. I could mark, by the 
sound, the progress made by those invisible feet. 
They passed on to the bedroom floor, and with heart- 
felt gratitude I heard them enter, not mine, but an 
empty room. I heard nothing more that night. Pre- 
sumably the ghost remained quietly in his comfortable 
quarters. 

" The next day came more complaints from the 
housekeeper. The ' strange man ' not only prome- 
naded the house at intervals, but he had the imperti- 
nence to ring several bells. I wondered if a whisky 
and soda left casually on his dressing-table would ap- 
pease his thirst for summoning the servants in this 
irritating fashion. 

" For some days after this we were left in peace, and 



SOME STRANGE EVENTS 109 

I began to hope that * it ' had betaken itself to the 
house of some other chap, but no such luck! 

" One evening I was in the dining-room decanting 
some wine before dinner. It was just seven o'clock, 
when I heard ' its ' footsteps again. This time they 
were coming downstairs. I went to the door and 
looked out. There was no one to be seen. I reen- 
tered the dining-room and shut * it ' out. I suppose 

* it ' had been having a rest in the bedroom. I trusted 

* it ' meant to have a night out. 

" A moment or two later I heard a click near the 
fireplace, and looking towards the spot whence this 
sound came, I saw the handle of the bell being pulled 
back. In another second the bell rang. 

" When the maid answered it I was ready for her. 

"*Oh! don't you know what that is?' I inquired 
with mild sarcasm. ' Only mice crossing the wires. 
Nothing to be frightened of in that, is there?' 

" I stuck to this all through the weeks that followed. 
The maids ceased to answer the bells, and went early 
to bed in a bunch. They no longer required rooms to 
themselves. 

" In a few months the trouble stopped as suddenly 
as it had begun. * It ' had evidently found other quar- 
ters more to * its ' liking. The mice were equally 
obliging. They ceased running across the wires." 

What theory will explain this species of haunting 
which is quite common? May it not be that this 
disembodied entity attached itself to my brother whilst 
he was out, and like a lost dog followed him home? 
There must be countless entities wandering about all 
over this globe, seeking an abiding-place for their 
restless souls. People who find themselves as bereft 
of friends on the other side of death, as they were in 



no GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

earth life. Those who have friends here have doubt- 
less friends there. 

In old days we used to think of a post-mortem 
abode as somewhere in the skies. Some even men- 
tioned a receiving station in the bowels of the earth. 
Now I find that the majority of educated people have 
come to regard so-called death as merely a change of 
consciousness, and the immediate post-mortem sphere 
of our activities to be a region interpenetrating this 
earth. 

A county neighbor of ours in Aberdeenshire told 
me of a very tantalizing experience he had a very few 
years ago of temporary haunting. This was a case 
of seeing, not hearing. 

The time was late autumn, and his family had gone 
south for the winter, leaving him alone for a week or 
two to finish up the shooting. 

One night, immediately after he had dined, he ran 
upstairs to his bedroom to fetch something. On com- 
ing out of his room again, what was his astonishment 
to see, walking in front of him, a tall young lady, 
very smartly dressed in the height of the prevailing 
fashion. She wore black satin, cut very low and 
without sleeves, and she moved very quietly along the 
passage, and proceeded to go downstairs. She never 
turned her elaborately coiffed head, and he could not 
see her face. He followed, too speechless with amaze- 
ment to address her. Who on earth could she be? 
Where was she going? Nine o'clock at night; only 
two old servants in the house! In the depth of the 
country, and nine miles away from anywhere! And 
this charming young lady who so unexpectedly had 
made her appearance to brighten his solitude! 



SOME STRANGE EVENTS in 

What a surprising adventure! The situation was 
piquant to say the least of it. 

He followed immediately behind the attractive 
vision. He even wondered what room he would have 
prepared for her. So absolutely real did she look, 
that not for a second did he doubt she was ordinary 
flesh and blood. 

When describing her afterwards to me he said, 
" I can assure you I saw the actual white flesh of 
her bare arms and shoulders. I was close behind 
her." 

The lady moved composedly on, walking with sup- 
ple grace and perfect self-possession. She was not in 
the least hurried or flustered. She reached the bot- 
tom of the stairs, and he had a momentary fear that 
she would make for the front door, where surely 
a Rolls Royce would be awaiting her. Not so! She 
walked straight into the dining-room. He followed. 

As he entered the door she had gained the opposite 
end of the room, where the sideboard stood. 

For a second she stood still, turned and glanced 
round at him with an enchanting smile of delicate 
raillery. Then she deliberately walked through the 
sideboard and wall beyond, and was lost to sight. 

The beholder of this ghost had never seen anything 
of the sort before, and was, if anything, a disbeliever 
in psychic phenomena. He is a perfectly healthy, nor- 
mal country gentleman, whose principal hobby is sport, 
and who prefers a country life out of doors to the life 
of an intellectual student. 

Needless to say the occurrence puzzled him beyond 
measure. He could not " place " the lady, and was 
certain that he had never seen her before. Her dress 
proclaimed her to be absolutely modern. 



112 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

Though in roundabout ways he tried to find out 
if any woman, answering to her description, was visit- 
ing at the time in any of the neighboring country 
houses, he failed entirely to get any result. 

Being rather shy of the chaff he knew would be 
indulged in at his expense, he mentioned the incident 
to no one. He took careful notes of date, timfe, 
and other particulars, and kept a strict watch, but the 
lady appeared no more during his stay, and before 
Christmas he went south to rejoin his family. 

He did not forget the experience. When the fol- 
lowing autumn came round he found himself again 
in the North, under exactly similar circumstances. 
Eagerly he anticipated the anniversary of his first 
ghost. He was waiting for her on the landing out- 
side his bedroom door, and suddenly she sprang into 
sight from nowhere. To-night he had determined to 
lay hold of her, but he calculated without his ghost. 
She sped downstairs, this time as if she was well 
aware that he was in pursuit. They gained the din- 
ing-room almost neck to neck, and this time she made 
no pause before slipping through the wall. She 
simply looked back at him over her shoulder, and 
smiled at him enchantingly, provokingly. Then he 
found himself alone. 

The following year was blank. She came no more. 

Why did she come to that house, with which, it is 
certain, she had no connection? Why did she only 
appear twice, and both times on the same date? 

Such are the questions one asks in vain, but such 
fugitive visions suggest the whisperings of a voice 
which calls out in the wilderness, and leads through 
life's enigmas to the final awakening. 

There are visions of beauty to which we are blind, 



SOME STRANGE EVENTS 113 

and joyous harmonies we do not hear. There are 
depths of feeling we have not plumbed, and heights 
we have not aspired to, yet I am sure if we but place 
ourselves in a simple attitude of receptiveness, we will 
draw nearer to the glory of the unseen, and Nature's 
finer forces will draw nearer to us. 



H 



CHAPTER IX 

POMPEY AND THE DUCHESS 

AVE animals souls? 

I unhesitatingly answer " Yes." 
If my dog has not a soul then neither have I 
— my dreams of immortality are merely a delusion. 
I base my belief upon the God-like qualities found in 
animals — the highest quality of all, love, pure, and 
unadulterated by self-seeking. 

The oldest scriptures of the world tell us that when 
wild animals die their life flows back into a group 
soul, a mass, as it were, of undifferentiated life es- 
sence. As the animal becomes domesticated, as a dog 
or cat learns to live with man, shares in his joys and 
sorrows, to be his constant companion, then it ad- 
vances rapidly in evolution. It is developing human 
qualities, and in due time will no more return to merge 
in the group soul, but be born into the human family. 
A lowly human family it is true, a primitive savage to 
begin with, but that animal has passed one of the 
most important milestones on the long, lone trail. It 
will never more return to the world in the form of the 
beast, henceforth it will commence its slow ascent 
from the most elementary human body to the exalted 
heights of a god. They tell us in the East : " First a 
stone, then a plant, then an animal, then a man, and 
finally a God." This is how the wisdom of the East 
understands Divine evolution. 

114 



POMPEY AND THE DUCHESS 115 

Cases where the ghosts of animals have been seen 
are becoming quite common. Before describing the 
astral apparitions of some of our animals, I will recall 
a very interesting case which was investigated in re- 
cent years at Ballechin, Perthshire. The accounts of 
the Ballechin hauntings are contained in a big volume, 
but at present I am only concerned in the four-footed 
ghosts that were seen. The trouble began upon the 
death of the eccentric owner, old Major Stewart, in 
1876. He had frequently stated his intention of 
haunting the place after his death, and, furthermore, 
had asserted his determination to " walk " in the 
form of one of his many dogs, a favorite black spaniel. 

The family, anxious, as they thought, to be on the 
safe side, had all the pack, numbering fourteen, de- 
stroyed at the death of their master, but this whole- 
sale slaughter of the innocents proved of no avail. 

The first intimation of its futility was immediately 
apparent. The wife of the old Major's nephew and 
heir was seated one day adding up accounts in the 
dead man's study, when the room was suddenly in- 
vaded by the old doggy smell, and an unseen dog 
pushed distinctly up against her. 

Many other unpleasant incidents followed after, 
but the really great happenings did not begin till 1896, 
when a shooting tenant, after a week or two, was 
compelled to quit the house, and forfeit the consider- 
able rent he had paid in advance. 

The above fact came to the notice of that inveterate 
ghost-hunter, the late Marquis of Bute, and he, and 
several other members of the Psychical Society, hired 
the house, and went into residence. The Times of 
June, 1897, contains elaborate details of the various 
experiences and the names of the investigators. 



ii6 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

The phenomena they describe are very startling, but 
perhaps the most unnerving specter was the frequent 
appearance of a black spaniel, which was seen by 
numerous persons. One member of the party had 
brought a black spaniel of his own. He saw it run 
across the room, when at that moment the real dog 
— his own — entered and began to fraternize with 
the ghost dog. 

Two ladies occupying the same bedroom had a 
curious experience. A pet dog on the end of the bed 
began to whine, and looking to where its eyes were 
fixed they saw, not the black spaniel, but two black 
paws on the table by the bed. 

Various other sorts of dogs were seen by many 
people. The black spaniel by no means had the 
monopoly, and dogs, purposely brought by the investi- 
gators to aid them in their elucidation of the mystery, 
made friends or exhibited mistrust of the pack of 
ghost dogs haunting both house and grounds. 

Twice in my life I have seen the wraith of our 
own dogs, " Pompey " and " Triff." Pompey was a 
big brindled bulldog of terrifying aspect and angelic 
nature. My husband and I adored him, and his death 
caused us great grief. Indeed, the whole household 
mourned him long and deeply. One day, about ten 
days after his death, I suddenly caught sight of him 
walking in front of me down the avenue. 

On the spur of the moment I called him by name, 
then he vanished. 

I mentioned this occurrence to my maid, who at 
once told me the kitchenmaid had seen him in exactly 
the same place. 

When alive on earth " Pompey " had a habit of 
stealing into a guest's room when the early tea was 



POMPEY AND THE DUCHESS 117 

brought up. He would lie in wait in a dark corner 
and then attempt to enter behind the maid or valet. 
When the door was shut again he would emerge from 
his hiding-place, and attempt to leap on the bed. He 
was exceedingly gentle and affectionate, but exter- 
nally he was so forbidding that his offers of friend- 
ship were not always accepted, and he was a great 
weight. 

One day a Mrs. Shelton came to stay with us, and 
the next morning asked to have her room changed, 
because " Pompey " had kept walking round her bed 
all night, and she had not been able to sleep. She 
was sure it was " Pompey," because she recognized 
his peculiar, heavy, slithering movements. 

Some time after this Millicent, Duchess of Suther- 
land, came to pay us a visit. She had been very over- 
worked, and needed a complete rest. She brought 
with her a maid and a small French bulldog, and she 
and the maid occupied a suite of three rooms, two 
bedrooms and a bathroom, shut off from the rest of 
the house by a heavy swing door. 

The French bulldog was accustomed to sleep in the 
maid's room. We had no dog left of our own. The 
beautiful Duchess went to bed about half-past ten; 
she was very tired and ought to have slept well, but 
she didn't. 

In the night she was awakened by what she took 
to be her own bulldog prowling round her bed, yet its 
footsteps sounded strangely heavy. 

She knew nothing about " Pompey's " ghostly visits ; 
we had been careful not to mention them. 

When she came downstairs the next morning she 
told us what a disturbed night she had passed through. 
She was awakened soon after niidnight by the restless 



ii8 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

movements of a bulldog round her bed. She did not 
doubt it was her own dog, that owing to the forget ful- 
ness of her maid had been left asleep under her bed. 
She called it, and at the same time switched on the 
light, but could see no signs of any dog at all. Rather 
puzzled, but concluding that she must have been mis- 
taken, she composed herself to sleep once more. 

Before very long the noise began again. A bulldog 
with its heavy, slouching tread was moving about 
round her bed. 

This time the Duchess got up, and made a thorough 
search of her room, but could see nothing in the shape 
of any animal. Yet so convinced was she that a dog 
had been in the room, that she determined to look into 
her maid's room to see if her own dog was there. 

She opened her maid's door, which was shut, and 
went into the room. The woman was asleep, and on 
the bed at her feet slept the French bulldog. 

There was nothing to be done but to go back to 
her own bed once more, and try to sleep in spite of 
the disturbances. 

This was the story the Duchess told us, and added 
to me, " If he comes again to-night I shall come along 
to your room and rouse you." 

It did not come again. The peculiarity of " Pom- 
pey's " visits was that they only occurred once to 
each stranger, though he came several times to me, as 
was but natural. 

We honored his memory by raising to him a large 
granite headstone, on which was inscribed — 

" Soft lies the turf on one who finds his rest, 
Here, on our common Mother's ample breast. 
Unstained by meanness, avarice and pride, 
He never flattered and he never lied. 



POMPEY AND THE DUCHESS 119 

No gluttonous excess his slumbers broke, 

No burning alcohol, no stifling smoke. 

He ne'er intrigued a rival to displace. 

He ran, but never betted on a race. 

Content with harmless sports and moderate food, 

Boundless in love, and faith and gratitude. 

Happy the man, if there be any such. 

Of whom his epitaph can say as much. 

" On this spot 

are deposited the remains of one 

who possessed beauty without vanity, 

strength without insolence, 

courage without ferocity, 

and all the virtues of man without his vices. 

This praise, which would be unmeaning flattery 

if inscribed over human ashes, 

is but a just tribute to the memory of 

'Pompey' a dog. 

Born 1891. Died 1902." 

Our next dog, " Triff," was a very handsome sable 
collie. Of course, we became devoted to him, and 
when he also passed away we felt very desolate with- 
out him. 

For a long time I never could feel that he had left 
me. Though I could not see him, I used to speak to 
him, just as if I could see the dear presence I so 
strongly felt. It was hard that I never could catch a 
glimpse of him, because others did. The butler saw 
him many times, and my maid caught sight of him 
twice. 

One often reads in ghost books of abnormal animal- 
like creatures being seen by psychics, but it is rare 
to meet with living individuals who can testify to 
such personal experiences. 

I remember Lilian, Countess of Cromartie, telling 



120 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

me of a strange incident that once happened to her. 

She was walking alone one bright summer morning 
in Windsor Great Park. Suddenly she saw an amaz- 
ing looking creature loping slowly towards her. It 
resembled an enormous hare. That is to say, its legs 
and head were those of a hare, but its size was that 
of a goat, and its horned head was half-goat, half-hare. 
This creature, loping without any fear, and with a 
hare's movement straight towards her, caused her to 
pause. She stood still and breathlessly waited its ap- 
proach. It passed quite close to her, and as it did so 
she struck at it with her parasol. Instantly it disap- 
peared. 

Princess Frederica of Hanover, always intensely in- 
terested in psychic phenomena, and herself no tyro 
in psychic knowledge, told me many years ago that 
she had seen several different sorts of abnormal ani- 
mals, quite unknown to this earth, and under circum- 
stances which left no doubt as to their actual exist- 
ence. 

Many years ago there was much talk amongst a 
certain set of an experience that had come to a foreign 
Grand Duchess and her husband, who spent much of 
their time in England. This couple were traveling 
in the wilds of Greece, and one night they wandered 
out together on to a bare mountain side. Sitting down 
to rest they were enjoying the beauty and utter loneli- 
ness of the moonlit scene, when they suddenly heard 
the galloping of many horses' hoofs approaching them. 
This astonished them greatly, as they were in so wild 
and unfrequented a part of the country. There was 
no road near them, and it seemed strange to hear 
horses galloping so fast on such rough ground at 
night, even though there was a moon. 



POMPEY AND THE DUCHESS 121 

Husband and wife stood up immediately in order 
to show themselves. The sound suggested a headlong 
rush, and they feared that in another second a whole 
regiment might ride over them. 

They had not long to wait. A troop of creatures, 
half-men, half -horses, tore past them, helter-skelter. 
Fleet and sure-footed they thundered by, and they 
brought with them the most wonderful sense of joy 
and exhilaration. Neither the Grand Duchess nor her 
husband felt the smallest fear; on the contrary, both 
were seized by a wild elation, a desire to be one of 
that splendid legion. The thundering of their hoofs 
spread over the hills, and died away into the distance. 

On returning to their camp the husband and wife 
found an uproar. Something had gone wrong with 
the Greek servants, who were shivering with terror, 
and struggling with equally terrified horses to prevent 
a stampede. All that could be learned from the Greeks 
was that they had heard something, something known 
of and greatly feared. 

I happened to hear the Grand Duchess tell of her 
weird experience, and I have often wondered in later 
years if Algernon Blackwood had also heard the story, 
and founded upon it his fascinating book, " The Cen- 
taur." 

There were several people in the room whilst the 
Grand Duchess was unfolding, in the most impressive 
manner, this strange event. Amongst them was the 
first Lady Henry Grosvenor, born Miss Erskine 
Wemyss of Wemyss Castle. 

She told us that when a child of seven years old, 
she had passed through some minutes of such abso- 
lute terror, that as long as she lived she would never 
forget the experience. 



122 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

With another child, and a nurse in attendance, she 
was playing one summer morning out of doors. After 
a little while the nurse rose from her seat amongst 
the heather, and wandered away a short distance, out 
of sight but not out of hearing. 

A few moments after the two little girls heard 
some bushes behind them rustling, and a huge crea- 
ture, half-goat, half -man, emerged and leisurely cross- 
ing the road in front of them plunged into the woods 
beyond and was lost to sight. Both children were 
thrown into a paroxysm of terror, and screamed 
loudly. The nurse ran back to them, and when told 
what was the matter scolded them for their foolish 
fancies. No such animal existed, such as they de- 
scribed, an animal much bigger than a goat, that 
walked upright, and had but two legs, and two hoofs, 
that was covered with shaggy brown hair from the 
waist downward, and had the smooth skin of a man 
from the waist upward ! 

The nurse bade them come home at once, and as 
they gained the road Miss Wemyss pointed down into 
the dust. Clearly defined was the track of a two- 
hoofed creature that had crossed at that spot. The 
nurse stared for a moment or two, then with one ac- 
cord they all ran. She never took her charges near 
that spot again. 

Lady Henry said that the memory of that experi- 
ence was so firmly grafted on her mind that she could 
always recall with perfect clarity the exact appearance 
of this appalling creature. In after years, when 
grown up, she realized from pictures that what she 
had seen was a Faun or Satyr. Such pictures or 
statues always sent a thrill of horror through her. 
She attributed this apparition to the fact that she and 



POMPEY AND THE DUCHESS 123 

her companion were playing close to the site of a Ro- 
man camp, and the road was an old Roman road. 

She went on to say that the Grand Duchess had 
given her courage to tell this incredible story. It 
was as absolutely real to her as was the passing of the 
Centaurs to the Grand Duchess. 

The whole scene stood out in brilliant light as a 
picture before her, whenever she thought of it, which 
she very often did. She never mentioned it to any one, 
as she felt that no one would believe her. She could 
always smell again the scent of summer, and the odor 
of pine trees, and hear the trickling of water from a 
tiny stream. She could always see a wide, white road, 
ribbon-like stretching away to the horizon. Then, 
suddenly, she and her young companion stood face 
to face with a presence, a hideous, unspeakable shape, 
that was neither man nor beast. 

She believed that there was a real world beyond 
the glamour and vision of our ordinary senses, and 
sometimes this veil was lifted for a few seconds. She 
believed that much of the tradition of mythical crea- 
tures represented solid fact, and that it was possible 
there were failures of creation still extant. Again, 
might there not be races fallen out of evolution, but 
retaining as a survival certain powers that to us ap- 
pear miraculous. A very gifted being was Miminie 
Erskine Wemyss, who married Lord Henry Grosvenor. 
One of my earliest memories is the thrill her beauty 
gave me when first I saw her, as she walked into 
church, a silver prayer-book, slung on a silver chain, 
depending from her arm. 



CHAPTER X 

THE INVISIBLE HANDS 

ALL through my life there have come to me 
moments never to be forgotten. Often the 
incidents that so deeply impressed me were 
utterly trivial in themselves, still they were sacra- 
mental, inasmuch as they proved to me, absolutely 
and conclusively, the immortality of the soul, and the 
power possessed by the soul after so-called death to 
concern itself with terrestrial happenings. Such mo- 
ments are sacramental, in the sense that Nature is 
sacramental, in its showing forth of God's glory, and 
the manifestation of His handiwork. 

I was sitting near the library window, reading, in 
the fading light of a quiet November afternoon. It 
was one of those utterly still, mournful days, with a 
gray, brooding sky, save where, in the west, a pale 
primrose sunset was bathing the horizon in light. I 
was reading " Man and the Universe," by Sir Oliver 
Lodge, and had arrived at page 137, which ends Chap- 
ter VL 

In those days, the year was 1908, I always tried 
to arrange at least one week of perfect quiet for the 
study of a new book which I had just ordered. I 
would calculate on which day the post would bring it 
to my country home, and I would arrange my life 

124 



THE INVISIBLE HANDS 125 

accordingly. This may sound rather ridiculous, but 
the truth is that a book like " Man and the Uni- 
verse " is such a pure intellectual treat to me, that I 
like to gloat over it, to taste it slowly, and imbibe it 
gradually. I try to spin out the joy of it as long as 
possible by reading slowly, and thinking over the prob- 
lems presented. 

At last I put the book down on a table by my side.. 
I was in no hurry. It lay on its back, open, the pages 
uppermost; just where I had stopped reading. I fell 
to wondering on the words I had just read. 

" A reformer must not be in haste. The kingdom 
Cometh not by observation, but by secret working as 
of leaven. Nor must he advocate any compromise 
repugnant to an enlightened conscience. Bigotry 
must die, but it must die a natural, not a violent death. 
Would that the leaders in Church and State had always 
been able to receive an impatient enthusiast in the 
spirit of the lines — 

" Dreamer of dreams ! no taunt is in our sadness, 
What e'er our fears our hearts are with your cause, 
God's mills grind slow ; and thoughtless haste were madness, 
To gain Heaven's ends we dare not break Heaven's laws." 

I must have sat thinking for quite ten minutes 
when my attention was suddenly attracted by a sound. 
The sound of paper leaves being rustled. The room 
was so dead still that the faintest sound would have 
called my attention, but this sound was by no means 
faint. I turned my head and looked at the book I 
had been reading, because, from it, unmistakably the 
noise proceeded. 

I beheld a most enthralling phenomenon. Unseen 
hands were turning over the pages. 



126 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

A thrill of intense excitement ran through me, and 
I stared at the book in breathless interest. The hands 
seemed to be searching for some particular passage. 
The number of the page upon which the passage was 
printed was not, apparently, known to the searcher. 
I will try to describe what actually happened. 

Several leaves of the book were turned over rather 
rapidly, each leaf making the usual sound which ac- 
companies such an ordinary physical action. Then, 
as if fearing that the passage required had been over- 
looked or passed by, several leaves were turned back 
again. 

This manifestation continued for at least ten min- 
utes, and I could see nothing but the pages of the book 
being turned quite methodically, as by a human hand. 

At moments there was rather a long pause in the 
search, and at the first pause I thought the demonstra- 
tion might be over, but once again the invisible entity 
resumed the search, and I found myself saying, " He 
found something there that interested him. That is 
why he stopped." For no reason I can give I felt cer- 
tain my visitor was a male spirit. 

On the second pause in the search occurring I had 
no doubt that again he had found something that 
interested him. The whole manifestation was very 
leisurely and wonderfully human. As I sat watching 
the book being manipulated by unseen fingers, every 
smallest action suggested design. One could not 
doubt as to what was taking place. At length there 
came a pause longer than usual. The book lay flat 
on its back wide open. There was now no quiver of 
the leaves. The invisible entity had found what he 
wanted and gone. 

I curbed my curiosity for five minutes more, then 



THE INVISIBLE HANDS 127 

feeling convinced that I was again alone I stretched 
out my hand, took the book and, rising, carried it close 
to the window. 

There was still enough light to read by, and the 
leaves were open at pages 172-173. 

I had only read as far as page 137. 

I scanned them eagerly, and at once discovered 
that a mark had been made on the margin of page 172. 
A long cross had been placed against a paragraph. 
The mark was such as might have been made by a 
sharp finger-nail. The words marked were — 

" I want to make the distinct assertion that a really 
existing thing never perishes, but only changes its 
form." 

To-day the mark is as clearly visible on the page 
as on the day it was made. I can form no conjecture 
as to who the entity was, but he certainly knew the 
contents of the book. No one watching the search 
could doubt that, or that he was desirous of impressing 
upon the readers of the book a certain fact stated 
therein, which must have previously attracted his at- 
tention. 

In the year 1900 we took a house for the winter 
months in the West End of London. 

It was a small house though joined on either side 
by great mansions, and once upon a time it had actually 
been a farmhouse standing amid smiling fields. 

It retained many relics of its ancient origin in fine 
oak paneling and quaint nooks and corners, and had 
been for many of its latter years the town residence 
of a man whose type had practically died out, the per- 
fect type of our old English aristocracy. 

The bedroom I occupied was exceedingly comfort- 
able and warm. The bed, placed against the wall, 



128 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

was exactly opposite to the fireplace, so that lying 
on my right side I looked straight at the fire and 
could see the whole room. 

I was constantly on the alert, as I knew how full 
of history such a house must be, but for several weeks 
I neither saw nor heard anything in the least unusual. 

One night, quite unexpectedly, a change occurred. 
I no longer had the room to myself. A stranger oc- 
cupied it with me. 

It was a cold, snowy night, and I was lying in bed 
facing the fire and courting sleep, when I heard a 
sudden noise which was totally different to the sounds 
made by the dying fire. Take a large sheet of stiff 
writing paper in your hand and crush it up between 
your fingers and you will hear the sound I heard. 
Quite a loud and distinct noise if you happen to be in 
a very quiet room, at an hour when all the household 
has retired to bed. 

Naturally, I instantly opened my eyes and looked 
out into the room, which was lit brightly enough by 
the fire to make all the objects it contained quite 
distinct. 

An armchair was drawn up close to the fire; half 
an hour before I had been seated in it warming my 
toes before getting into bed; now it was again filled. 

In it sat a man turned sideways towards me. He 
was lying back with his legs stretched straight out in 
front of him towards the fire. One of his arms hung 
over the arm of the chair, and in his clenched hand 
was a large piece of paper or parchment. 

His finely cut profile was clearly outlined, he was 
clean shaven, and he stared into the fire, his chin sunk 
in a high black stock. 

His hair was powdered and tied behind by a large 



THE INVISIBLE HANDS 129 

black bow, and he wore bright blue cloth knee breeches, 
white stockings, silver buckled shoes, and many gold 
buttons on his blue coat. I did not take in all those 
details at once ; I had ample leisure to do so later. For, 
I suppose, a full two minutes, I stared very hard at 
him, and lay very still, knowing full well I was looking 
at a ghost. Then very cautiously I drew the bed- 
clothes over my head, and shut out the startling vision. 
I was invaded by wild panic. 

I have never been one of those timid women who 
are frightened by their own shadows. I require to 
be face to face with a tangible danger before I put 
faith in its existence, yet, I confess that at that mo- 
ment I knew what actual fear meant. My heart beat 
thickly, then seemed to stop, and I was instantly bathed 
in cold perspiration. I knew that the servants were 
all in bed two flights of stairs below me, and my hus- 
band was out of London, so no calling for help was 
any use. I therefore forced a sort of spurious des- 
perate courage, and began to be angry with myself 
for being thus afraid when no cause for fear existed. 
I treated myself to a scornful lecture. " You who 
profess to know all about ghosts, you who have ac- 
tually seen several ghosts, you coward to quail before 
this one ! Don't you know perfectly well that he won't 
hurt you, that he has a perfect right to sit in that 
chair, and that it is your duty to speak to him should 
he show any desire for conversation ? " 

" I am so terribly alone," pleaded my other self in 
feeble self-defense. 

"Well, what of it? If the whole household was 
in the room What could they do? You are not a 
child. Uncover your head and look the specter boldly 
in the face." 



130 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

The stillness and hush of deep night, at the hour 
when sleepers slumber soundest, was upon the house. 
The traffic of London was muffled in a heavy fall of 
snow. I could hear nothing but the feeble crackling 
of the expiring fire in the grate, but gradually I ral- 
lied my courage and faculties and peeped stealthily 
out. 

There sat that dark form between me and the 
fire ; there he lay in an attitude of moody carelessness, 
watching the cooling embers as they faded from scarlet 
to pink, from pink to yellow, and then fell tinkling 
into heaps of white ashes. No statue was ever stiller. 
He did not move in the least, but sat more like an 
effigy of a man carved out of stone than a creature of 
flesh and blood. 

I closed my eyes and re-opened them, to test the fact 
whether I was awake or asleep and dreaming. No, 
I was broad wake and the room was still fairly well 
lit, and there sat the phantom before the fire, the 
proud, well-set head with its powdered curls distinctly 
visible in the red glow of the firelight. I should think 
an hour must have passed thus, whilst I gazed at the 
figure before me, taking in every detail. There was 
no indication that he knew or cared for my presence. 
The figure sat like a stone. 

I came to the conclusion that the phantom was 
about thirty years of age, and a sailor who had lived 
in the days of Nelson, judging by his clothes and the 
pictures I had seen. I noticed particularly his hand 
clenched on the paper. A white hand, with strong 
cruel-looking fingers. There is so much character in 
hands. The face may be drilled into a mere mask, 
but hands tell tales of their owners. I could imagine 
the hand that had crushed the papar closing murder- 



THE INVISIBLE HANDS 131 

ously on the throat of an adversary, or gripped hard 
on the hilt of a dagger. 

Ther were moments when the awful inertia of the 
figure began to play havoc with my nerves, when I 
would have given anything to make that impassive 
form move from out its dreary attitude of sullen 
brooding; anything to cause the profile of the face, 
with all its gloom and pride, to turn and front me, so 
that I might know the worst. But the figure never 
turned, never stirred, but sat with stately head bowed 
under a weight of thought. 

Now and again a little flame would spurt up and 
glitter on his shoe buckles, his brass buttons, but the 
fire was dying now, and gradually the figure became 
more and more indistinct. 

Then I slept. I had been feeling drowsy for some 
time, and fought against it. I had violently resisted 
sleep, feeling a great repugnance to losing conscious- 
ness whilst the specter still sat there, but the blank force 
of sleep at length overpowered me. When I awoke 
the cold gray morning light was stealing feebly in 
through the window. The chair was empty. The 
figure was gone. 

The next night I went to bed full of courage, but 
I was left alone. If the sailor returned it was not un- 
til after I had gone to sleep. 

A week later he came back. One moment the chair 
was empty, the next moment with one wild heart 
throb I opened my eyes at the sound of crackling 
paper, and the chair was filled. There he sat in his 
'brooding sullen attitude and continued so to sit till 
slumber vanquished me. After that I saw him at 
constant intervals. 

By this time I had entirely rid myself of all fear. 



132 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

I did not even desire to change my room which would 
have been very inconvenient, and I dreaded alarming 
the household and being left alone to conduct the 
domestic duties. But though no longer afraid those 
constant visits began to get on my nerves, and I con- 
sulted a Catholic friend who was always sympathetic 
to the occult side of life. 

She said at once that this spirit should be exorcised 
and set free from the bondage of earth, and that 
she had an old friend, a Franciscan monk, who was 
known to be a powerful exorcist. She offered to ar- 
range the matter, and I gladly accepted her sugges- 
tion. 

It was on an early spring afternoon that Father 
Reginald Buckler came to the house. In his white 
habit, sandaled feet and shorn crown, he looked an 
incongruous figure in that fashionable locality already 
beginning its social entertainments in view of the 
season's approach. He was a charming, courteous old 
man, who took his mission very seriously. After a 
few words of explanation we mounted to the bedroom 
floor. 

There were four doors opening on to the little 
landing, and without asking which of the doors led 
to the haunted chamber, he turned the handle of the 
right one and entered. Still he put no question, but 
at once proceeded with the Service of Exorcism. 

Sprinkling the four corners of the room with Holy 
Water, he bade me kneel down in the middle. Then 
he raised his Crucifix and offered up prayers for the 
repose of the earth-bound soul, that he might be loosed 
and set free. 

For five weeks longer we remained in the house, 
but I never saw the sailor again. 



CHAPTER XI 

DAWNS 

WE have been given many wonderful dawns 
this winter, and I have used them eagerly 
as a cleansing of the war-weary mind and 
distracted soul. In such ethereal apparitional dawns 
one walks with the Eternal, and all temporal things 
fade away. Those pale silver daybreaks have a rap- 
ture of their own, they suggest a fresh creation straight 
from the looms of God. When the hours of day have 
drawn on the flaming sunset, that exquisitely serene 
emotion of virgin tranquillity will have passed away, 
and the horizon will be lurid and grand beneath a 
grave frowning sadness gathered from the scenes of 
earth they have brooded over. 

Such dawns beckon imperiously to the pilgrim, to 
leave the shelter of the roof-tree, and come forth to 
walk with the immortals whilst the Morning Star, the 
light-bringer, still shines, a white gold radiance in the 
heavens, and the distance is still dissolved in veils of 
pearl and opal. 

Such daybreaks always rouse in me the urge for 
wider thought, for the broad day of the mind. Out 
of the limitless beyond comes the certain knowledge 
of a something unimagined, lying just outside human 
thought. I am sure there is so much not yet imagined, 
something more than mere existence. 

There is a wine of happiness in tranquil daybreak, 
and an aloofness from life that urges one to seek for 

133 



134 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

that which is beyond comprehension. The draught 
exalts the soul, and quickens it with unquenchable fire, 
until the world falls away, far from one, as day wells 
out of still darkness. Only at such moments do we 
reach the true horizon. 

Again, there is an amnesty in such dawns, a glory 
of release from the house of bondage. In the great 
silences, life, as we know it, is remote, and the im- 
mensity is a magic that draws the soul, fusing it in a 
strange passion, so that whatever fulfillment our exist- 
ence holds is summed in that hour of solitude. 

A pale wash of translucent gold is thrown across 
land and sea. On the far horizon a ship is set in 
relief, against a core of crimson flame which heralds 
the sun. A dove coos softly, and on a bare branch a 
thrush thrills in waves of sound, seeking in the univer- 
sal ether to reproduce its divine instinct in other 
feathered hearts that are attuned to its melody. 

Such joys as these are transitory, and never wholly 
possessed. They pass the enclosures of life, and bring 
one nearer to the beating heart of truth. The agoniz- 
ing fear of losing hold on them is, in itself, the cause 
of their dispersal. It is the same at rare moments of 
semi-consciousness, when one has actually laid hold of 
a genuine astral experience — and knows it. Then 
comes the frantic endeavor to hold on — to pin the 
moment fast and tight, till the whole vision is absorbed. 
The soul seems to hold its breath! How often, with 
bitter disappointment I have rushed reluctantly into 
full waking consciousness — and only half the story 
told. Fragmentary though such moments are their 
potency is such that they endure through time. Thank 
God, that whilst the wedlock of body and soul still 
holds undissolved there is scope for such joys. They 



DAWNS 135 

are uncommunicable, and may not be shared with 
others at will, and they tell the soul that she is not of 
creation and cannot be contained by law. At such 
hours she learns the truth, that she passes for a brief 
span into the limited, from out the limitless whence 
she came. At such sacramental hours one can pray 
the prayer of Socrates, offered up by the banks of the 
missus : 

" O Beloved God of the forests and flocks and all 
ye Divinities of this place, grant me to become beauti- 
ful in the inner man, and that whatever outward things 
I have may be at peace with those within. May I 
deem the wise man rich, and may I have so much 
wealth, and so much only, as a good man can manage 
to enjoy. 

" Do we need anything else, Phsedrus? For myself 
I have prayed enough." 

How many people now recall fragments of former 
lives! Ask the next man you meet if he has any 
recollections of former existences, and be sure he will 
not eye you askance as a fugitive from Bedlam. He 
may smile and shake his head, and regret to say he 
isn't psychic, but he won't ask you what on earth you 
mean. This is how we have progressed towards truth 
in the last thirty years. The truth of reincarnation 
is being quietly accepted by the West and is now openly 
preached from many pulpits. H God is love, who 
could reconcile with any comprehensive idea of jus- 
tice and law in the world the lives and experiences 
of common humanity? How reconcile the births tak- 
ing place in one single day in their vast diversity, by the 
hell for the criminal, born, nurtured and killed in crime, 
who never had a chance, and Heaven for the happily 



136 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

bom, who need never have a temptation? What is 
the Divine Law lying behind this seeming hideous in- 
justice? Undoubtedly the continuous evolution of the 
soul in bodies of matter. Men are looking now to 
the scheme of organic evolution to provide the field 
for spiritual evolution. They are finding it in the 
depths of their own consciousness. 

I chanced upon one of those fragments of a past 
life, those islets in eternity in a strange way. I was 
paying a visit to a stranger in Cambridgeshire, and 
whilst awaiting her entry I walked round the room 
looking at some lovely water-colored sketches that 
hung upon the walls. When their owner entered, and 
after a few minutes' conversation, I said, " How beau- 
tiful those Sicilian scenes are! " 

She looked pleased and answered : " I'm so glad 
you recognize them. I painted them. When were 
you last in Sicily? " 

I had never at that time been in Sicily. I told 
her so, but I could not tell a stranger that suddenly 
there had dawned upon me a keen recollection of the 
country I had certainly been in, though not in this 
life. The paintings, of course, dealt with a restricted 
field, but as I looked at them one by one I saw mentally 
a wide landscape in which each picture formed but a 
tiny spot. One I remember was a painting of a won- 
derfully perfect temple, which occupied the whole space 
of the picture. As I looked at it I saw wide rolling 
plains, and a wide expanse of blue sea. This I later 
recognized in Girgenti. 

A month or two afterwards my husband and I 
went to Sicily for the winter, and, as I had expected, 
the island was perfectly familiar to me. I knew 
exactly round which bend of the hill I should find a 



DAWNS 137 

temple, but Syracuse was really my spiritual home. 
It was there that I had played out one of my many 
life dramas, and many incidents returned to me as I 
wandered over the hills, and gathered maiden-hair 
ferns in the twilight of the empty tombs. 

Once I opened my eyes on Stromboli, one of the 
^olian or Lipari Isles. Instantly I felt a passion of 
love for it, an intuition of spiritual delight which is 
utterly irreducible to terms. I have looked upon it 
since, and always with an adoration impossible to 
paint with pen or pencil. I have for weeks antici- 
pated the moment when I should see it again. It 
means something to me far beyond what the eye can 
see, the tongue relate, and it is this something lying 
betwixt rhapsody and lament which draws me by a 
tenuous chain of thought right back into the womb 
of time, where buried memory stirs in its long sleep. 

Stromboli, so the ancient poets tell us, was the 
home of the fiery god, Vulcan. That explains much 
to me, but it unfolds a secret none may learn. 

It was in a flaming dawn that I first saw Stromboli 
rising from amid the numerous isles surrounding it. 
From its cone shot a great plume of smoke, like a 
giant ostrich feather, silver tinted. In its ethereal 
loveliness it seemed to float in the void, half of earth, 
half of heaven. 

Neither bondage of words, nor the cold scrutiny 
of reason can impinge upon a scene which draws the 
soul away upon a celestial pilgrimage. Free and 
elate, she passes beyond the frontiers of life, and like 
the echoes of the sea when a shell is held to the ear, 
she hears the pulse of earth beat far away in unfathom- 
able distance. The marvel of the uncreated consumes 
her in a trance of unincarnate passion. 



138 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

Those who have once adventured on such pilgrim- 
ages are never quite the same again. They become 
children of " the Divine unrest." They have experi- 
enced a moment in which earth and flesh dissolve, 
in which law is not, in which creeds and covenants 
find no place, and the hold upon common life with its 
moving mirages is blotted out. Time and space are 
annulled, the aeon and the second are one. The soul 
unswathed, has risen from the tomb where the life 
urge has laid it, and is aglow with the transcendental 
fires of eternal being. In after days the soul learns 
to set barriers against such visitants. One must not 
look upon the other side of the moon too often, for 
fear one is drawn away from home and kindred. The 
time is not yet, but it will surely come. 

One other curious happening I must relate. Years 
ago, one autumn when I was in the far north there 
came a magnificent visitation of falling stars and 
many aerolites dropped to earth. The display was 
predicted, and I was on the lookout. It came in a 
rain of gold and seemingly from all points of the 
compass. For hours I watched a sight far more mar- 
velous than anything I had anticipated. 

When at last I reluctantly went to bed I had a 
strange dream or, rather, astral experience. I was a 
Hungarian gipsy, the head or queen of an enormous 
clan. I heard wild Hungarian music, and saw enor- 
mous crowds of my people gathered round me. They 
were very savage and picturesque, and a ceremony 
was proceeding. 

On the ground, and in the center of a great ring 
of people, stood a large bowl filled with blood. I 
stood in front of it and watched the swearing in of 
new adherents to my clan, by means of the " blood 



DAWNS 139 

covenant." The blood that filled the bowl had been 
drawn from the veins of my people, and the new ad- 
herents were each required to drink from it and swear 
their allegiance. Only one thing troubled me all 
through what seemed a long ceremony. My feet 
caused me pain, and I was aware that they were bare, 
as were the feet of all my people. 

So vivid was the dream that I could visualize my 
whole life as I lived it on the plains of Hungary, and 
the scenery surrounding me was lit up by a glorious 
sunset. There were hundreds of horses grazing loose, 
as far as the eye could reach, and flocks of enormous 
white geese, amid which great storks strutted. 

Suddenly I awoke with the acute pain in my feet 
uppermost in my mind. I found myself clad only in 
my nightgown, walking bare-footed on the rough 
gravel paths of the garden, whence I had watched 
the stellar display. I had been walking in my sleep, 
and the sudden unaccustomed stony hardness of the 
path under my bare feet had awakened in me the 
recollection of a past life, in which I had lived, a wild 
nomad in southern Hungary. 

This is the one and only occasion in my life in which 
I have known somnambulism. Luckily my memory 
did not fail me on waking and, some time after, when I 
was able to revisit the scenes of that long ago pil- 
grimage I was quite familiar with my surroundings. 

Buda Pest and the lands lying southward were then 
my home, a roving home and tent life of infinite va- 
riety. 

Thus the dead of vanished years are disguised in 
the present living. 

I have no doubt that many people who have not 
had the interesting experience of remembering one 



140 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

or more of their former incarnations have been able 
through some trivial incident to recollect happenings 
long vanished from their memory. Sometimes the 
scent of a flower, the glimpse of a scene, a chance 
word or expression will vividly recall some episode 
lying hidden for many years in the subconsciousness. 
Again it will be pulled over the threshold from, past to 
present, from the storehouse of the eternal memory 
into the everyday working consciousness or mind. 

This is not a book for scientists. I will therefore 
go into no elaborate metaphysics, but will sketch as 
simply as I can what I mean by subconsciousness. I 
use the term for the region or zone within us which 
stores up the residues of past thoughts and experi- 
ences. Scientists tell us there are three realms of 
mind, the super-conscious, the conscious, the subcon- 
scious. The conscious mind is what we commonly 
use. It belongs purely to the objective world, and 
its instruments are the five senses. The subconscious 
mind is the storehouse for experiences on the human 
plane of man's long past. The super-consciousness is 
independent of the five senses. It is a faculty of per- 
ception closely akin to the One force in the Universe, 
which is inseparably related to all created things. It 
possesses the attributes of Infinity, is indestructible, 
immortal, undying. We may forget a fact for many 
years, then suddenly we remember it. I believe it 
has come back to us again across the threshold from 
the subconscious region to our consciousness or mind 
which is open to everyday observation. 

I have become convinced, by personal experience, 
of the existence in us of this region below the threshold 
of our ordinary conscious life. When I was young 
there were many problems I wished to solve, and in 



DAWNS 141 

this effort human aid often failed me. My plan was 
to " sleep on " a problem, ardently desiring before 
" dropping off " that an answer might be accorded 
me. I suppose this desire was of the nature of prayer, 
though addressed to no Deity. Almost invariably the 
solution was clear and unmistakable to me in the morn- 
ing. 

I lost this great advantage at the age of twenty- 
one,- but even now I can sometimes " get at " a solu- 
tion by leaving the question severely alone, after turn- 
ing it well over in my mind. The solution will sud- 
denly pop up, often weeks after I have tried to get 
at it, and when it comes there, it arrives apropos of 
nothing, so to speak. It simply dawns in the thick 
of quite other subjects, which happen at the moment 
to occupy my mind. 

Though I can no more demonstrate to others the 
existence of the subconsciousness than I can prove 
the existence of the immortal soul, I have got suffi- 
cient proof to satisfy myself, and I believe the same 
knowledge is open to many of us. Within our being 
are sympathetic chords that can vibrate to all the 
symphonies of Nature. There are visions of beauty 
and depths of feeling which may be seen and felt, if 
heart and mind are open to the higher influences. The 
finer forces of Nature, and her immutable laws, are 
ready to draw nigh to us if we desire to welcome 
them, and are eager to place ourselves in harmony 
with the Infinite Source of being. We are in the keep- 
ing of the best and highest, and whatever things are 
pure, whatsoever things are beautiful, whatsoever 
things are true and high and holy will gravitate towards 
us in proportion to the degree we desire them. The 
mysterious gift of existence is in itself a beckoning 



142 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

ideal, and a foregleam of the final awakening that will 
surely be ours. 

Now what does the subconsciousness contain? 

Firstly, I believe it to be permeated by Deity, and 
the Divine indwelling. It is the seat of Genius. I 
believe a genius to be one who is capable of drawing 
from the contents of his subconciousness that which 
outwardly appears as a creation. It is said that genius 
creates and talent copies. I believe that a man be- 
comes great when he represents the results of count- 
less lives in his individuality, and each life is an arc 
of the infinite life of the Universe. The man with 
aeons of experience behind him is infinitely more en 
rapport with his subconsciousness than those younger, 
more immature souls who have as yet experienced 
few earth lives and who constitute the bulk of hu- 
manity. 

The eternal mind finds its home in the subcon- 
sciousness, by which I mean that nothing is really 
forgotten by man. This lapse of memory is the pass- 
ing of the subject from the ordinary mind into the 
subconsciousness, whence it may later be recovered 
again. The memory of all our former incarnations I 
believe to lie hidden in the subconsciousness. It is 
from this region or zone that one gets sudden uprushes 
of memory, and such uprushes are induced by stumb- 
ling on a chance link between the two zones of con- 
sciousness. 

Some chance incident, such as the presence of my 
bare feet upon the rough gravel, touches a correspond- 
ence on the other side of the threshold, and lays bare 
old scenes to the observation of the ordinary mind. 
It is noteworthy that the matter contained in this up- 



DAWNS 143 

rushing is recognized first, and the means which 
brought about the uprush is recognized secondly, 

I believe there is a vital communication between 
consciousness and subconsciousness which could be 
enormously developed and utilized by practice. The 
age in which we live has produced the most marvelous 
triumphs of mind over matter. Access to the sub- 
consciousness is becoming commoner and simpler. 
We have broken in and harnessed material forces in 
a manner undreamt of fifty years ago. Yet there is 
an alas! a fact which detracts from all our legitimate 
pride in our achievement — the base uses to which our 
triumphs have been put. The whole of our inven- 
tive power has been turned against the life that gave 
it birth. The parents are being consumed by their 
own offspring. . . . Matter evolved out of spirit has 
threatened destruction to the latter. 

The threshold between our ordinary consciousness 
and the region of subconsciousness seems to me like 
a bridge which is rarely used, and which separates the 
country known from the country unknown. I live in 
the country known, but if I can touch a button at 
my end I can get a response instantaneously trans- 
mitted from the country unknown. The trouble is to 
find the button. At present I only press it at long 
intervals and by the merest chance. Still it is some- 
thing of an achievement to have convinced one's self 
that such a region actually does exist. 

I believe this subconsciousness of ours is in direct 
contact with the Great Creative Power. " It is God 
that worketh " in man, and its vital communications 
are hidden in the infinite eternity. Says a Sufi ideal : 
" To abide in God after passing away is the work of 



144 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

the perfect man, who not only journeys to God — 
passes from plurality to unity — but in and with God 
— continuing in the unitive state he returns with God 
(his subconscious self) to the phenomenal world from 
which he sets out, and manifests unity in plurality." 

Though at present, to all outward seeming, the 
evolution of the beast is consummated, there is a some- 
thing that flatly contradicts this apparent certainty. 
That something is man's subconsciousness, and the 
Divinity it enshrouds, and which fiercely and irrevo- 
cably is set against the bestiality into which he is 
plunged. War has never been so universally hated 
as it now is. It is in this vital fact, which cannot be 
too strongly emphasized, that our future hope lies. 

I believe this vital fact to be so strong that entire 
regeneration is a certainty. Where hitherto this force 
has lain dormant or been dispersed, disunited and 
weak in spiritual utterance, it is now a collective force 
concentrated in millions of lives. All over the earth 
it is now gathered en masses and that stupendous 
aggregate, vivified, sharpened, and intensely accentu- 
ated by untold suffering will revolutionize all former 
weak and fatalistic acquiescence in the inevitability 
of war. Millions of men have descended into hell, 
they are there now, but they will arise again from 
amongst the dead, and ascend one day into the Heaven 
of peace, and thence they will judge the quick and the 
dead by a new standard. The standard of the God 
within, whose voice has been heard at last from out 
the din of battle. It is the same God who has said 
to the East : — 

" Have perseverance as one who dost forever more 
endure. Thy shadows (physical bodies) live and 
vanish, that which is in thee shall live forever, that 



DAWNS 145 

which in thee knows is not of fleeting life, it is the 
man that was, that is, that will be, for whom the 
hour shall never strike." 

To-day we all use, in some cases automatically, 
the powers and aptitudes developed in us in the long- 
and painful evolution of the physical form. As evo- 
lution proceeds we will gain a vastly greater control 
over the subconsciousness, and in aeons to come " in 
the flight of the alone to the alone " union will be 
achieved. The two will be merged in one. 

The Lord Buddha has said that to enter Nirvana 
is to become fully conscious of our fundamental one- 
ness with the universal life. 

" I and my Father are one." Christ's sense of one- 
ness with the Father was essentially Nirvanic. 

We have not yet accustomed ourselves to think 
of evolution in any terms but the material, as a power 
inherent in matter. Darwin's physical evolution stood 
for pure materialism. Bergson now carries us a step 
farther. He introduces us to a spiritual principle. 
His creative evolution is a spiritual activity seeking 
freedom of expression in matter. Darwin's struggle 
for existence is by Bergson transmuted into life, ex- 
pressing itself through material forms, and life and 
matter are in constant conflict. Again he points out 
that the spiritual principle, hfe, has not "had it all 
its own way." It has experienced checks, but in two 
modes of activity it has succeeded, in instinct and 
intelligence. Thus he draws for us the grandiose up- 
ward sweep of a Divine activity. Curbed, it is true, 
by the crust of matter, but finding ever higher capa- 
cities, and higher expression towards that ultimate 
reality which is creative life and to me is union with 
that higher self lying in the subconsciousness of all men. 



CHAPTER XII 

peacock's feathers THE SKELETON HAND 

AT MONTE CARLO 

A SEA voyage once provided me with a wonder- 
fully lucky experience, inasmuch as it saved 
me from an extremely bad accident. 

I was returning quite alone from the East in a 
ship crammed full of women and children, most of 
them soldiers' wives and families going home to escape 
the hot weather. Many of them were attended by 
ayahs. 

Two days out we ran into a raging storm, and every- 
thing was battened down. Owing to the weather, 
and the excessive crowding, the conditions below soon 
became very unpleasant, and I asked the captain if I 
might take possession of the ladies' summer drawing- 
room on the upper deck and close to the bridge. See- 
ing that it would not be used by any one else for some 
time to come he kindly agreed, and I at once settled 
myself in my eyrie with a few books, and prepared 
for some days of solitude. 

But as the storm did not abate the suffering women 
and children below claimed my attention. They were 
confined in an atmosphere which was appalling, they 
were all terribly ill and utterly helpless. The mothers 
were unable to attend to their children, most of whom 
were infants, and the ayahs suffered horribly. Hav- 
ing no cabins they lay groaning on the floors of the 

146 



PEACOCK'S FEATHERS 147 

corridors, drenched with water as the ship was awash 
from stem to stern, and tossed hither and thither as 
she rolled heavily. 

It was never easy to descend from my perch aloft, 
but the sufferers had to be aided, and day after day 
I never knew a dry moment till I lay down at night. 
So far the summer drawing-room remained fairly 
water-tight in spite of being swept continually by heavy 
seas, but the noise of the elements was absolutely deaf- 
ening, and when the captain called upon me we had 
to shout in each other's ears. 

With his connivance I got a shelter rigged up on 
what appeared to be the only dry spot on board. It 
was about twelve feet square and walled in with sail- 
cloth, and there the sailors helped to carry a number 
of tiny children. They were to remain there during 
the best hours of the day, until their mothers and 
nurses were capable of attending to them once more. 

I took charge at first and found my task no light 
one. The babies did not seem to appreciate my blan- 
dishments. They cried persistently, but luckily their 
voices were drowned in the roaring of the wind. 

At last a cabin boy chanced to look in, and at once 
sized up the situation. He signaled to me that he 
knew of something that would ease the tension and 
then he disappeared. In five minutes he was back 
brandishing a large bunch of peacock's feathers. These 
he shook in the face of each infant in turn, at the 
same time making the most hideous grimaces at them. 
It was an anxious moment for me, but luckily the ef- 
fect was electrical. The babies suddenly forgot to 
yell, they stiffly maintained their equilibrium and stared 
in a sort of indignant amazement. Then, gradually, 
as the boy kept going round the circle repeating the pro- 



148 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

cess, smiles and dimples began to appear, and in five 
minutes more the whole creche was laughing. 

I applied for permission to annex that boy; he was 
indeed a treasure, and the joy in the peacock's feathers 
never palled. His gutta-percha face had an infinite va- 
riety of expression, which he could instantly turn on 
to suit all occasions. It was a fascinating sight to see 
him going round the group feeding each baby out of 
the same bottle, one of the old-fashioned horrors with 
a long indiarubber tube and teat. Those infants who 
had contemptuously rejected all my offers of nourish- 
ment now sat expectantly agape waiting their turn. 
The scene always reminded me of the artificial feed- 
ing of fowls, by the man who goes round the pens 
squirting liquid down each gaping throat. 

When we landed at Marseilles there was a wonder- 
ful parting between the babies and the cabin boy. 
They clung to him to the last, and howled dismally 
when they were carried off by their haggard mothers. 

One night, during the height of the storm I was 
asleep on the fixed red velvet seat running round the 
walls of the summer drawing-room. I lay just under 
a porthole, to which was attached a rope. The other 
end of the rope was tied round my arm to prevent 
my being thrown to the floor by the rolling of the ship. 

At five o'clock in the morning I was suddenly awak- 
ened by hearing my husband's voice shouting in my ear. 
(My husband not being on board, but in our home in 
the North of Scotland.) 

" Sit up ! Sit up ! " shouted his voice command- 
ingly. 

Considerably startled I threw myself into a sitting 
position, and as I did so a gigantic wave shattered 
the port-hole, and the heavy fragments of glass fell 



PEACOCK'S FEATHERS 149 

on to the pillow where a second before my face had 
lain. 

Of course, the water poured in and over me in 
volumes, and stopped my wrist watch at five a. m., but 
I had got used to salt water, and in a few minutes 
the weary captain had waded in, and was disentangling 
me from my rope and congratulating me on my lucky 
escape. 

I told him how it was that I had escaped, and he 
was not in the least skeptical. On the contrary, he 
said that he had known some curious things happen 
in his time, for which there was no accounting; but 
he always kept a black cat on board. 

Had the safety of his ship not claimed his whole 
attention I believe he would have told me some of 
his experiences, but when, at last, the weather abated 
he was too much in need of rest to be bothered by 
any one. 

My husband had no knowledge of the service he 
had rendered me. At five a. m. that morning he was 
asleep at home, and had no premonition of danger, or 
any recollection on waking of the role his astral coun- 
terpart had undoubtedly played. 

What is this astral counterpart of man? His soul 
and spirit dwells in a shroud of flesh, and the feat of 
getting out of that shroud of flesh at will is the aim 
of all occultists. It is to the astral world they go, soul 
and spirit encased in the astral sheath we term the 
astral body. 

During sleep, or in trance, when the normal physical 
senses are in abeyance, when the body is unconscious 
in sleep, the mind continues to act in the realm corre- 
sponding to the suggestions given when awake. The 
world at large is open to the highly developed man, and 



150 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

he will sometimes bring back from his astral plane 
expeditions memories of what he has seen and heard. 

In deep slumber the physical body in healthful re- 
pose remains where it has lain down to rest, but the 
man's higher principles, the astral body encasing the 
soul and spirit, is invariably withdrawn, and in under- 
developed persons hovers in the immediate neighbor- 
hood. In such cases the higher principles, the astral 
body, soul and spirit of St. Paul's Gospel, are not suf- 
ficiently developed to roam, and remain near the physi- 
cal body in a brooding sleep. All cultured persons 
in the present day have their astral senses fairly well 
developed, and have the power during sleep to go 
where they will, but as yet few have the power to re- 
tain the memory of it when returning to the body. 

In some cases the astral man during sleep is specially 
attracted to some one point, and he invariably travels 
towards it; in other cases he will drift aimlessly about 
on the astral currents, meeting with experience of all 
sorts and with people in a similar condition whom he 
knows. Is there anything very extraordinary in all 
this, and is not the condition of deep unconscious 
sleep a demonstration in itself that the physical con- 
sciousness has departed elsewhere ? As it is no longer 
functioning on the Physical plane clearly it has found 
another realm in which it can temporarily exercise 
its activities. 

My husband once had a rather interesting experi- 
ence of his own, on the Astral plane. He was in bed 
and asleep on the Physical plane, and he believes that 
the time must have been between eleven p. m. and 
twelve a. m. He simply became aware that he was 
functioning consciously on the Astral plane, and was 
intensely interested. 



PEACOCK'S FEATHERS 151 

He found himself in a strange house of medium 
size, and he was floating at the top of a flight of stairs 
leading to an ordinary entrance hall below. At the 
foot of the stairs hung a lighted lamp, and below the 
lamp stood a man and woman, who were apparently 
exchanging a word or two before bidding each other 
good-night. 

My husband instantly conceived the idea of testing 
and proving his belief, that he was consciously afloat 
on the Astral plane. If this belief was true, then he 
ought to be able to pass through the couple standing 
below, without their being in the least aware of his 
presence. 

In a flash he was downstairs, and his belief stood 
the test. His imponderable astral body passed with- 
out feeling or shock through two ponderable bodies 
of flesh and blood, and he was out on the other side. 
The excitement of the adventure awakened him, and 
he brought back to the Physical plane a clear recollec- 
tion of all that had happened. 

When one thinks of it, the possible presence of 
total strangers in one's house is rather alarming. 
Luckily for us such wanderers rarely bring back to 
waking consciousness the memory of their nocturnal 
escapades. When we are more advanced in " other 
side " knowledge we will doubtless refrain from in- 
truding upon the privacy of our neighbors' dwellings, 
and confine our attentions to realms which are free 
to all. 

It is curious how constantly one hears of the ghosts 
of priests and monks being seen. I have not met any 
one yet who has encountered the wraith of an An- 
glican parson, or a Nonconformist preacher. I won- 
der why? I presume the latter do sometimes " walk." 



152 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

Once upon a time, when we were in Rome, my 
husband and I went to keep an appointment with 
Monsignor Stonor, who was a great celebrity, and an 
extremely handsome and charming man. We were 
being shown upstairs by a servant, and the hour was 
eleven o'clock on a sunny spring day. I was walking 
first, my husband following, and at the top of the 
stairs, coming slowly downward, was an old priest 
carrying a huge portfolio, under which he seemed to 
be staggering. He passed the servant, and as he 
neared me I noticed that the cassock which he wore 
was torn in great rents in several places. His gray 
hair hung on his shoulders, though his crown was 
shaven, and his face was the color of old ivory. 

I moved slightly to give him and his burden room 
to pass, and as he did so our eyes met. His were 
very strange. They were exactly like points of live 
flame. 

Something about his whole presence struck me as 
so weird that I turned involuntarily and looked back. 

As I did so, I saw my husband walk straight through 
him. My husband saw nothing. Then I knew and 
understood. 

I did not mention this incident to Monsignor 
Stonor, but some time after I met his sister, Vis- 
countess Clifden, at Monte Carlo. She was an inti- 
mate friend of mine, and one day when an opportunity 
offered I told her the little story, and asked her if she 
had ever met with anything of the sort herself. She 
replied that personally, she had not, but she had heard 
that several people encountered at different times the 
old priest in her brother's rooms, though he himself 
had seen nothing of this apparition. 

Lady Clifden enjoyed nothing more than a little 



PEACOCK'S FEATHERS 153 

flutter at the tables. She never missed a single day 
during her long sojourns at Monte Carlo. 

Every one knows that the Anglican church-goers 
in the Principality hurry from church to gaming rooms 
in order to stake on the numbers of the hymns. Lady 
Clifden used also to hurry from Mass v^ith any num- 
bers she had caught up, and she considered Sunday 
her lucky day. Suddenly her luck changed. 

She told me that on the previous Sunday she had 
just pulled off a nice little coup, and v^as about to 
grasp it, when, to her horror she saw a skeleton hand 
stretched forth. Before she could collect her scattered 
senses the skeleton hand had raked in her gold. 
Where that gold had gone to worried and puzzled her 
dreadfully. So it did me! I never heard the last 
of it. She could not get over her loss. 

It was no use suggesting that the hand had belonged 
to one of the emaciated harpies who prey upon the 
unwary. Lady Qifden knew all about them, and was 
a match for the whole gang, had they attacked her. 
She insisted that the hand that had grasped her gold 
had neither skin nor flesh upon it, and that she had 
seen the two bare arm bones from wrist to elbow. 
We compromised on the suggestion of a third party 
that it must have been the devil himself, and that the 
heat he is supposed to engender had melted the gold 
entirely away. 

Monte Carlo is a very interesting place for the 
clairvoyant to be in, more especially if her vision ex- 
tends to seeing auras. Perhaps nowhere on earth are 
the basest human passions more swiftly and violently 
aroused, and several times, when some tragedy was 
being enacted, or some enormous coup was being 
brought off, I have been unable to see details, because 



154 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

they were hidden within a dense envelop of dark crim- 
son clouds. 

In the rooms a crowd collects swiftly, and from 
a hundred human auras, all gathered in one compact 
mass, stream forth emanations of the basest descrip- 
tion. Cupidity, envy, revenge, lust of the vilest, de- 
spair, ruin, death. 

I remember being met one night by a friend in the 
Attrium who was very excited. " Hurry up," she 
cried, " the double Duchess has broken the bank and 
is still playing." 

I went into the gambling rooms, and looked for 
the table at which the Duchess of Devonshire was 
staking. I knew she would attract a big crowd if she 
was winning. 

I found the table easily enough, not because it was 
surrounded by a crowd of people, but because it was 
hidden by a dark and dense crimson fog. 

With patience I got through this fog, and watched 
the handsome Duchess of Devonshire, formerly 
Duchess of Manchester, and born a Hanoverian, play- 
ing with a great quantity of gold, and a pile of thou- 
sand franc notes. By bending low down, almost level 
with the table, I found I got completely out of the 
fog, and could see clearly underneath it. 

One night there was a rush outside, and a huge 
ring formed to watch " a scrap " taking place between 
two celebrated members of la haute cocotterie de Paris. 

They were fighting with formidable hatpins, and I 
understood that the prey they fought over was Leo- 
pold, King of the Belgians. 

I ran with the crowd, the gambling rooms emptied 
in a twinkling, for the combat took place in the Casino 
Square. I squeezed through the excited mob till I 



PEACOCK'S FEATHERS 155 

got behind the backers of both parties, who were hold- 
ing the ring and defying the poHce. 

It was a wonderful sight to witness the combined 
play of flaming red auras, shot through with vivid 
flashes like lightning, and blazing jewels. 

The duel ended with a few scratches, much tearing 
of gorgeous raiment and disheveled hair. 

How interesting it was to the mystic to feel the 
psychology of that crowd, and see the thin veneer of 
civilization stripped off, leaving nothing but the human 
tiger and ape. Both ladies were eventually led off the 
arena by the police, not, be it understood, to the police- 
station, but to their own sumptuous apartments. All 
the time they shrieked and chattered like infuriated 
macaws, and between the shrieks they administered 
resounding smacks upon the cheeks of their patient 
escort. 

Monte Carlo was a wonderful place in those days, 
in which to study human nature at its best and worst. 
In latter years it has become meretricious and shabby, 
and the old magnificence is seen no more. Fifteen 
to twenty years ago all that was greatest in Europe, 
Asia, and the Americas, congregated there, and 
crowned heads mingled freely with the scum of the 
earth. Constant habitues were the Duchess of Devon- 
shire, and her son, Lord Charles Montague; the 
Duchess of Montrose, known to the ring at New- 
market as " Bobs," and always the personification, to 
listen to and look at, of a Thames bargee. Leopold 
of Belgium, Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Grand Dukes of 
Russia, potentates from India, all hobnobbing together 
and gambling heavily, 

I often wonder now what has befallen those brilliant 
stars of the half-world firmament. Emmeline d'Alen- 



156 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

Qon with her " bobbed " hair, and her passionate love 
of animals and birds. The demure Jeanne Ray, who 
came out every morning to her garden gate, and dis- 
tributed food to the crowd of paupers and cripples. 
I have seen peasants kiss the hem of her dress as she 
walked on an afternoon along the Promenade des 
Anglais. The beautiful, soulless Merode, the fierce, 
stately Otero, and many others who thought nothing 
of wearing fifty to a hundred thousand pounds' worth 
of jewels on one evening. 

Where are they now? If living they are old! 
Old! a word more dreaded by their class than death. 



CHAPTER XIII 

I COMMIT MURDER 

I WILL now relate a very unpleasant experience 
that befell me thirty years ago, but which has 
by no means exhausted itself in the passage of 
years. It still, at long intervals, recurs to me as 
vividly as when first I passed through the painful hours 
of its unfoldment. 

It was the month of July, and I was making a tour 
by road through a portion of Scotland, driving my 
own horse. I was accompanied by a groom and a 
maid. 

One evening we arrived at a well-known inn on 
Deeside, where I had arranged to pass a couple of 
nights. I found my room ready for me, an ordinary 
hotel bedroom, and after supper I retired very early 
to bed, feeling very sleepy after a long day in the 
open air. 

Towards morning I had a vision. I was a woman 
who had committed the crime of murder; and I went 
in hourly terror of discovery and arrest, as the police 
were actively in search of the criminal. Up to the 
present I had succeeded in evading them, and no 
shadow of suspicion had yet fallen upon me, but I 
lived in constant haunting dread that sooner or later 
some chance clue would direct their attention to me, 
and I should be arrested and brought up for trial. 

I had no clue in the vision as to how the murder 

157 



158 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

had been committed. My victim was a man, and a 
sensation, vague and cloudy, suggested that a quick 
poison was the mode of destruction I used, but I never 
gathered why I murdered him, or what relation, if 
any, he was to me. 

The vision was confined to my miserable sensations 
of fear of detection, and the trouble was that I seemed 
utterly powerless to keep away from the scene of my 
crime, a large mansion in the West End of London. 

Not only did I haunt the outside of the house, but 
I had several times contrived to penetrate into the 
interior without being discovered, the house having 
stood empty since the crime. 

It was a dark, foggy night when I determined again 
to effect an entrance, and I listened intently in the 
street before darting up to the front door and fitting 
my key in the lock. There was not a sound, and I 
found myself in the interior with the door softly 
closed behind me. 

I carried a candle, which I was about to light, when 
I saw that the large hall was not in its usual darkness. 
A dim light burned in a pendant globe, and looking 
round I perceived abundant evidences that the house 
was again occupied. Several pairs of men's gloves 
were neatly folded on the hall table, and a man's 
silk hat was neatly covered with a cloth. There was 
not the faintest sound to be heard in the house, and 
the hour was between eleven and midnight. 

Very softly I crept up the wide staircase. My 
heart was beating tumultuously, and I was in an agony 
of apprehension. On the first corridor I entered the 
room where I had concealed the body of the man I 
had murdered. I had dragged it there and hidden 
it in a great dress wardrobe. I opened the wardrobe 



I COMMIT MURDER 159 

door and found the interior had been filled with wo- 
men's clothes, they were swathed in linen sheets. 
Amongst them I began to search with both hands, 
but, of course, found no signs of the body, which had 
long since been removed. However, in some unac- 
countable way the action of searching seemed to com- 
fort me, and soon I turned to retrace my steps and gain 
the street once more. 

At that second I heard some one approaching, and 
quick as thought I slipped into the wardrobe and 
pulled the door close. Some one entered the room and 
then left it again. In a few more moments the house 
was again silent as the grave, and I began to creep 
downstairs very softly. 

When halfway down, at a bend which brought me 
in full view of the hall and the front door in the back- 
ground, I stopped short at a sound. 

Some one was about to enter, some one was fum- 
bling with a latch key at the other side of that door. 
Another moment and that some one would enter and 
I would be discovered. There was but one chance. 
Whoever it was might not come upstairs. He or she 
might strike off to the left of the hall, where a cor- 
ridor ran to that end of the house. 

I cannot attempt to describe my agonizing terror 
of suspense, yet I did not lose my presence of mind. 
Instantaneously I decided what to do, should the one 
about to enter elect to come straight upstairs. 

I hastily lit my candle, carefully shading it with 
my hand, and crouching low I peered through the 
banisters, towards the front door. It opened, and a 
man entered, middle-aged, well dressed, a gentleman, 
and an utter stranger to me. 

He closed the door and turned the key, but drew 



i6o GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

no bolts. Then he threw off a heavy coat, and placed 
his hat and gloves on the .table. My heart beat to 
suffocation, as I waited to see which way he would 
go. He was whistling softly to himself and, turn- 
ing, began to walk across the hall, heading for the 
stairs. 

Then the moment for action came. I knew now 
I should have to pass him in order to make my escape. 
I threw myself into the tragic pose of a somnambulist. 
I wore a long floating cloak, and I knew my face was 
white as death, and my eyes wide with sheer terror. 

With both hands, one of which held the lighted 
candle, outstretched gropingly, with distraught gaze 
fixed in wild vacancy, I slipped silently down the few 
remaining steps and sped noiselessly in my soft shoes 
straight across the hall towards him. 

Though I never turned my eyes upon him I was 
aware that he had stopped dead short, and was staring 
at me in startled amazement. Then fear suddenly in- 
vaded him, I could feel it. He fell back as if to let 
me pass, as I glided silently nearer to him and to the 
door. 

He was backing away from me now, then in another 
instant, he had turned and fled along the corridor. 
One more moment and I was safely outside, on the 
pavement. 

I woke up to a brilliant summer morning pouring 
in at my open window, but I was in no mood to enjoy 
its loveliness. I was bathed in cold perspiration, I was 
shivering with pure unadulterated fear. I was pros- 
trate with the violent revulsion of feeling, from acute 
dread of discovery to partial immunity on gaining the 
street and escaping from the house. The vividness 
of every detail was crystal clear, and attended by all 



I COMMIT MURDER 161 

the violent emotions such an adventure and escape 
would naturally arouse in me, had they happened in 
the world of realities. 

It was hours before I could shake off the horror of 
the vision, and I left the hotel that day. Nothing 
would induce me ever to pass another night under 
that roof. 

I had no recurrence of the vision till three months 
after, then it came again, with all its attendant horrors, 
when I was asleep in my own bed at home. This was 
succeeded at long intervals by a vision of my condition 
of mind as an undiscovered criminal, always evading 
detection, but without the vision of my return to the 
scene of the crime. During the last thirty years I 
have had recurrences of the complete and partial vision, 
but at long intervals. 

A few years ago I happened to be standing with 
my host in an enormous stone hall, in one of the 
greatest houses in England. We were discussing the 
house, and its uncomfortable vastness. There were 
suites of apartments in outlying parts where whole 
families might hide for days if housemaids were care- 
less. To reach the dining and drawing-rooms from 
the bedrooms, if one was tired, was a real weariness. 
We were looking up at the great gallery, running 
round the hall. It was reached by four wide flights 
of stairs at different corners, and it was full of all sorts 
of recesses, and massive pieces of old furniture and 
screens. On the spur of the moment I said to my 
host, " Wouldn't it be uncanny if we were to see a 
strange face looking down on us ? " 

To my surprise, he answered : " Oh ! that has 
often happened. I've often seen strangers looking 
down. At one time I took them to be inquisitive 



i62 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

members of my own household, whom I didn't know 
by sight, and one day I complained about it, to the 
housekeeper. She looked very much disturbed and 
told me she had seen the same thing herself. The 
house is opened on certain days to the public, and she 
was half inclined to think one of the visitors had 
escaped from the crowd, and hidden herself for several 
days, as it was not on a public day that the figure was 
seen," 

"Is it always the same figure?" I asked. 

" Oh, no," replied my host. " Always a different 
one, and always some one quite ordinary and modern 
looking. The strictest orders are given that none of 
the servants' friends are to be allowed in this part of 
the house, and the housekeeper has always been with 
us and is thoroughly trustworthy. The fact remains 
an unsolved mystery." 

The housekeeper was a very agreeable old woman 
of the real, old-fashioned type. Very rustling in the 
evening, in a rich silk gown, and wearing some fine 
piece of jewelry presented to her by one or other of 
the crowned heads who had visited the famous house, 
I had asked her before I left about these mysterious 
appearances, and she had no explanation to offer. 
She had ascertained beyond a shadow of a doubt, that 
they had nothing to do with the household. 

" They were always just ordinary looking men and 
women, such as one meets in the streets every day. 
Sometimes they seem to have hats on, sometimes their 
heads appear uncovered," she explained. 

This fits in with a belief I have always held that 
we constantly rub shoulders with the disembodied, 
without being in the least aware of it. As the Bishop 
of London once said : " We will find ourselves exactly 



I COMMIT MURDER 163 

the same persons ten minutes after death as we were 
ten minutes before death." 

There are many occasions when we cannot express 
feeHng in intellectual terms owing to the poverty of 
language. One's life not being a matter of intellectual 
perception, but a conscious experience, little of it can 
be made known. The mystic life is really incommuni- 
cable. 

We regard the Universe through the lens of five 
very imperfect senses, conscious all the time that 
there are certainly many more mediums for the expres- 
sion of consciousness. 

Perception is a manifestation of consciousness, and 
varies enormously in. individuals, ranging often above 
and beneath the normal. Undoubtedly perception 
can be enormously extended by practice, not only in 
seeing material objects, but in approaching the border- 
land of other worlds. 

The sight of the Psychic or Medium is not so much 
vision as a consciousness of the thoughts and feelings 
of others. It is a sensation rather than a process of 
thinking, sensation not as we commonly accept the 
term, but sensation through which mental objects are 
realized with as great a clarity of vision as physical 
objects are seen with the naked eye. 

This intuitive vision is near akin to ordinary physi- 
cal vision, inasmuch as the object seen has a real 
concrete existence. The Psychic feels vibrations and 
absorbs them. 

My explanation of my vision in the Highland inn 
is that the actual criminal had slept the night before 
in the room I occupied, and happening to be medium- 
istic I at once began to absorb the vibrations, and be- 
came steeped in all the circumstances, environment, and 



i64 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

conditions thrown off by the criminal in connection 
with the crime. 

The vibrations were intensely strong, and still 
fresh and concentrated. I absorbed them so fully 
that still at times they steal back across the threshold 
of my subconsciousness, the vehicle which registers 
and retains all impressions. 

During sleep, when one is off guard, the gate is 
often ajar, and old memories and incidents steal 
through, and range at will through the ordinary con- 
sciousness. 

In daily, normal existence the mind is merely a 
whirlpool, but undoubtedly the criminal would con- 
centrate mentally on every detail of her crime. There 
would be a focalization of her mind ; a concentration 
of her )vhole mental faculties upon this one single 
subject, and when the mental force is reduced from 
its normal, dissipated condition into coherency, its 
power is unlimited. It is possible to catch a physical 
disease by sleeping in an infected bed. It is quite 
as easy to catch a mental disease by the same means. 
Many emotions are highly contagious, notably fear. 
All are invisible to human sight, and there is rarely any 
warning. A Psychic may sense something unpleasant 
before infection is established. In fact, this often 
happens to quite normal individuals. Something in 
the atmosphere of a place conveys a warning, is un- 
pleasant or uncongenial and it is avoided. If a warn- 
ing was conveyed to me in the Highland inn I was too 
tired to heed it. ? 

At one time in my life I saw a great deal of two 
intimate and charming friends. Lord and Lady Wyn- 
ford. Alas! both have now passed over. 

Lady Wynford was born Caroline Baillie of Doch- 



I COMMIT MURDER 165 

four, and owing to her Scotch blood, and her relation- 
ship with many of our great Scotch families, she was 
profoundly interested in ghosts. Lord Wynford, on 
the contrary, had an absolute horror of the subject, 
and always left the room whilst it was under discus- 
sion. Though very dissimilar, husband and wife were 
the best of friends. She was very handsome and a 
brilliant woman of the world. He was shy, retiring, 
and deeply religious. A perfect example of a true 
gentleman of the old school, and an aristocrat to his 
finger-tips. I was devoted to them both, and they 
were very kind to me in giving me their warm friend- 
ship, though at the time of which I write I was only 
a girl of about twenty years old. 

At that period the great topic of conversation 
amongst ghost-hunters was Glamis Castle, the most 
celebrated of all haunted houses. No ghost book is 
ever considered complete without reference to this 
celebrated Castle, and the story usually narrated is, 
that in the secret room some abnormal horror lived, 
and that the heir, Lord Glamis, and the factor, had 
to be told of its existence by the Earl of Strathmore 
in person. This information was of so terrible a 
nature that it changed not only the lives of those 
two men, but even their personal appearance. They 
grew aged and haggard in a single night. 

This story was readily discussed in old days by 
mem.bers of the Strathmore family, who were just as 
keen as outsiders were to probe the mystery. To-day 
it is universally believed that the monstrosity is at 
last laid to rest, and that though other ghosts still 
walk the Castle, the worst has departed forever. 

I went one afternoon to see the Wynfords in the 
hotel in which they stayed whilst in Scotland, and 



i66 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

found Lady Reay with them. She was a wonderful 
woman in her way, and preserved her youth up till 
very late in life. Lord Wynford was not present, and 
Lady Wynford at once greeted me by exclaiming, 
" We are going to stay at Glamis next week, and Lady 
Reay has been there and seen a ghost." 

" But not the ghost," admitted Lady Reay. 

" Then what did you see? " I inquired. 

She then told the following story, which has a 
sequel : — 

" I had been in the Castle for three nights and 
much to my satisfaction seen absolutely nothing. 
We were a very cheery party, and every one was fright- 
fully thrilled and nervously expectant, but we were 
very careful not to breathe the word ' ghost ' before 
our host and hostess. 

" On the fourth night I was awakened by a moaning 
sound in my room, and I opened my eyes. The room 
was in total darkness, but I saw something very bright 
near the door. I shut my eyes instantly, and pulled 
the bedclothes over my head in a paroxysm of fear. 
I longed to light my candles, but didn't dare, and the 
moaning continued, and I thought I should go quite 
mad. 

" At last I ventured to peep out again. I saw a 
woman dressed exactly like Mary Tudor, in her pic- 
tures, and she was wandering round the walls, flinging 
herself against them, like a bird against the bars of a 
cage, and beating her hands upon the walls, and all 
the time she moaned horribly. I'm sure she was the 
ghost of a mad woman. Her face and form were lit 
up exactly like a picture thrown upon a magic lantern 
screen, and every detail of her dress was clearly de- 
fined. 



I COMMIT MURDER 167 

" Luckily she never looked at me, or I should have 
screamed, and I thought of Lord and Lady I. sleep- 
ing in the next room to mine, and wondered how 
I could reach them. I was really too terrified to 
move, and the ghost kept more or less to that part 
of the room where the door was situated. 

" I must have lain there awake for two or three 
hours, sometimes with my head buried under the 
clothes, sometimes peeping out, when at last the 
moaning suddenly stopped. I opened my eyes. 
Thank God, I was alone. The ghost had departed. 

" I lay with wide open eyes till daybreak. Then 
the first thing I did was to run to the mirror to see if 
my hair had turned white. Mercifully it hadn't, but 
I looked an awful wreck. 

" I told just a few people what I had seen, and 
contrived to get a wire sent me before lunch. Early 
in the afternoon Lwas on the way to Edinburgh." 

Such was the story Lady Reay related. 

Thirteen years later Captain Eric Streatfield, who 
was a nephew of Lord Strathmore, and an intimate 
friend of my husband, told me exactly the same story. 
He was a boy of six at the time, when the lady of 
Tudor days appeared moaning in his room, and he 
said he would never forget the misery of the night he 
passed. He was very much interested in hearing that 
Lady Reay had gone through the same experience. 
He told me another extraordinary story. 

Whilst, as a school boy, he was visiting at Glamis 
Castle with his parents, he noticed that they began to 
behave in rather a peculiar manner. They were often 
consulting alone with one another, and constantly 
scanning the sky from their bedroom window, which 
adjoined his. For two or three days this sort of thing 



i68 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

went on, and he caught queer fragments of conversa- 
tion whispered between them, such as, " It doesn't 
always happen. We might be spared this year, the 
power must die out some day." 

At last one evening his father called him into his 
room, where his mother stood by the open window. 
In his hand his father held an open watch. 

His mother bade him look out, and tell them what 
sort of night it was. He replied that it was fine, 
and still and cold, and the stars were beginning to 
appear. 

His father then said, " We want you to take 
particular note of the weather, for in another moment 
you may witness a remarkable change. Probably 
you will see a furious tempest." 

Eric could not make head or tail of this. He 
wondered if his parents had gone mad, but glancing 
at his mother he noticed that she looked strangely 
pale and anxious. 

Then the storm burst, with such terrific suddenness 
and fury that it terrified him. A howling tempest, 
accompanied by blinding lightning and deafening 
thunder, rushed down upon them from an absolutely 
clear sky. 

His mother knelt down by the bed, and he thought 
that she was praying. 

When Eric asked for an explanation he was told 
that when he was grown up one would be given him. 
Unfortunately the moment never came. An aunt had 
told him that the storm was peculiarly to do with 
Glamis, and was something that could not be 
explained. 

Lord and Lady Wynford paid their visit to Glamis, 
and I looked forward eagerly to their return in a 



I COMMIT MURDER 169 

week's time. I went to see them the day after their 
arrival back again, and was met by Lady Wynford 
alone. Before I could question her she began to 
speak of the visit. 

" I don't want you even to mention the word 
Glamis to Wynford," she said very gravely. " He's 
had a great shock, and he's in a very queer state of 
mind." 

She paused, and I ventured to ask, " But what 
sort of shock? " 

Then she gave me the following account : — 

" Wynford and I occupied adjoining bedrooms. 
We were having a delightful time. Glorious weather, 
and a lot of very pleasant people. I really forgot all 
about there being any ghost. We were out all day, 
and very sleepy at night, and I never heard or saw 
a thing that was unusual. 

" Two nights before we left something happened 
to Wynford. He came into my room and awakened 
me at seven o'clock in the morning. He was fully 
dressed, and he looked dreadfully upset and serious. 
He said he had something to tell me, and he wished 
to get it over, and then he would try not to think of 
it any more. I was certain then that he had seen or 
heard something terrible, and I waited with the great- 
est impatience for him to continue. He seemed con- 
fronted with some great difficulty, but after a long 
pause he said — 

" ' You know that I have always disbelieved in the 
supernatural. I have never believed that God would 
permit such things to come to pass as I have heard 
lightly described. I was wrong. Such awful experi- 
ences are possible. I know it to my own cost, and 
I pray God I may never pass such a night again as 



170 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

that which I have just come through. I have not 
slept for a moment. I feel I must tell you this, in 
fact, it is necessary that I tell you, because I am going 
to extract a promise from you. A promise that you 
will never mention in my hearing the name of this 
house, or the terrible subject with which its name is 
connected.' 

" I was speechless for a few minutes with per- 
plexed amazement. I had never heard Wynford 
speak like that, nor had I ever seen him so terribly 
upset. 

" * But,' I said at last, * aren't you going to tell 
me what has so unnerved you ? ' 

" He began pacing up and down the room. * Good 
God, no,' he exclaimed, ' I couldn't even begin to 
tell you. I have no words that would have any 
meaning or expression. Don't you understand, there 
is no language to convey such happenings from one 
to the other. They are seen, felt, heard! They 
cannot be uttered. There are some things on earth 
I know of now, that may not be related to the spoken 
word. Perhaps between a man and his God, but not 
even between you and me.' 

" We were silent again for some minutes, during 
which he continued to pace the room, his head drooped 
on his breast. I was really seriously alarmed. I even 
feared for his reason, and I couldn't form the smallest 
conjecture as to what had been the nature of his 
experiences. I was quite convinced of one thing. 
What he had seen was no ordinary ghost, like Lady 
Reay's Tudor Lady. She might have amazed him, 
but it required something much more terrible and 
awe-inspiring to have reduced him to such a condition 
of mental misery and desolation. 



I COMMIT MURDER 171 

" I wanted to comfort him, to sympathize with him, 
but something about him held me at arm's length. 
It was his soul that was suffering, and with his soul a 
man must wrestle alone. I felt that his deep religious 
convictions of a lifetime had been violentl}' dislocated, 
for all I knew shattered entirely, and I felt profound 
compassion for him. I may have had doubts, on 
many points. I confess to being a worldly skeptic, 
but Wynford's faith has always been so pure and 
childlike, and I have striven never to jar him on 
religious subjects. Now I feel as if somehow, every- 
thing that he has ever had has been taken away 
from him. 

" At last I said, * Don't you think we had better 
leave to-day? We can easily make some excuse.' 

" He stopped and looked straight at me, so 
strangely. 

" ' No, I can't leave to-day. I must stay another 
night here. There is something I must do. Now will 
you give me your promise never to mention this subject 
to me again? We may not be alone together again 
to-day. I want to get it over. Promise.' 

" I gave him my promise at once. I dared not have 
opposed him. I was horribly frightened. He went 
out of the room at once, and I lay thinking and shiver- 
ing with dread. ' What was it he had to do? Why 
could we not leave to-day ? ' It was all so mysterious. 
" Well ! the day passed in an ordinary manner, and 
if Wynford was more grave than usual I don't think 
any one noticed it. Then came the night I so dreaded. 
Of course I didn't sleep at first, I was too anxious, 
and I heard him come up to his room half an hour 
after I did. The door between our rooms was closed, 
and I lay awake listening intently. I heard him 



172 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

moving about; I supposed he was undressing, and 
his man never sits up for him. Then after a time there 
were occasional creaks which I knew came from an 
armchair, and I knew that he had not gone to bed. 

" I suppose I must have fallen asleep, because the 
next thing I was aware of was Wynford's voice. He 
was speaking to some one, and seemed to be in the 
middle of a conversation. When he ceased speaking 
I strained my ears to catch a reply. I could hear no 
words, only his voice. Then a reply did come, and it 
simply froze the blood in my body, and I felt bathed 
in ice, and had to put my finger between my teeth, 
they chattered so horribly. 

" The reply was a hoarse whisper, a sort of rasping, 
grating undertone, that was not so much a whisper 
as an inability to speak in any other voice. There 
was something almost inhuman in those harsh, vibrat- 
ing, yet husky words, spoken too low for me to catch. 
I knew at once that no guest, no member of the 
family, spoke like that, and I could not conceive that 
it could be a servant. What could Wynford have to 
say to any servant of Lord Strathmore? 

" A clock somewhere in the Castle struck three. 
No; I was certain that the presence with him, what- 
ever else it might be, was no human being dwelling 
tinder the roof of Glamis. 

"At times they seemed to hold an argument; 
sometimes Wynford's voice was sharp and decisive, 
at other times it was utterly weary and despondent. 
I dreaded what the effect might be upon him of this 
awful night, but I could do nothing but lie shivering 
in bed, and pray for the morning. 

" How long it went on for I can't say, but the 
conviction came to me suddenly that Wynford had 



I COMMIT MURDER 173 

begun to pray. His voice was raised, and now and 
again I fancied I could hear words. The rasping 
whisper came now only in short, sharp interjections 
or expostulations, I don't know which. The even 
flow of Wyn ford's words went quietly on, and I began 
to be certain that he was praying for the being who 
spoke with that terrible whisper. It occurred to me 
that he might even be trying to exorcise some unclean 
spirit. 

" At last a silence fell. Wyn ford stopped pray- 
ing, and I hoped that the terrible interview was 
at an end. Then it began again, and for quite an 
hour the prayers went on, with long periods of silence 
in between. I heard no more of the terrible, husky 
whisper. 

" I fell asleep again and did not awake till my 
maid brought me early tea. No sooner had she gone 
than Wynford entered, fully dressed. Though he 
looked desperately tired and wan, he seemed quite 
composed, and as if some weight had been removed 
from off him. He said he was going for a stroll be- 
fore breakfast, and, of course, I remembered my 
promise and put no questions. I have come to the 
conclusion that a hundred people may stay any length 
of time at Glamis and see or hear nothing. The hun- 
dred and first may receive such a shock to the nervous 
system that he never really recovers from it." 

Such was the mysterious story that Lady Wynford 
unfolded. I saw her husband the next day, but beyond 
being graver than usual in his manner I detected no 
difference in him. He never referred, even in the most 
indirect way, to his visit, but he must have inferred by 
my silence that I had been warned not to mention 
the subject. Many others must, however, have done 



174 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

so, for every one, who at that period passed a night 
under Glamis Castle roof, was eagerly questioned by 
friends and acquaintances on their return. 

The only occasion on which I visited Glamis was 
on the night of a ball, given in honor of the Crown 
Prince of Sweden. The curiosity of the guests was 
held in check by servants being stationed at certain 
doors, and entrances to corridors and staircases, to 
inform rude explorers that they could not pass. It 
is hard to believe that such a course of action was 
necessary, but I personally watched little parties 
being turned back towards the ballroom and sitting- 
out-rooms, showing that intense curiosity may even 
prove stronger than good breeding. 

What Wynford saw that night will never be known, 
but one fact remains. It left so deep an impression 
upon him that he 'was never the same man again. 
He became graver and more wrapped up in his own 
thoughts month by month, and the change that ended 
in his death his wife attributed to those nights passed 
in Glamis Castle. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE ANGEL OF LOURDES 

ONE lovely summer evening I was standing in a 
hotel bedroom, washing my hands. I was in 
Lourdes, and I was pondering upon a certain 
long flight of stone steps that I could see quite clearly 
from my window. At the top of the steps, which were 
cut in the face of the wooded hillside, stood a great 
Calvary, and from dawn till darkness pilgrims made 
the hard ascent upon their knees. The stones were 
worn and grooved by the stream of human beings 
making their painful way to the foot of the Cross. 

The atmosphere of Lourdes is very impressive to 
the Psychic. One breathes the concentrated essence 
of prayer. No one goes there who is not on prayer 
intent, and in the public streets, gardens and churches 
one comes across kneeling figures lost in Divine con- 
templation. No one heeds them; all are on a like 
mission, and sometimes men and women stand for 
hours with outstretched arms. Human crosses, ob- 
livious to all, lost in a mystic rapture which takes 
count of neither time nor place. 

I turned my head towards the window. The sun 
had just set behind the mountains, and the sky was 
illuminated by a rosy afterglow. Down in the valley 
the shadows were beginning to lengthen, but I could 
still see the Calvary on the hillside, and the dark 
human stream slowly moving up the stony way, the 
Via Dolorosa of the Cross. 

175 



176 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

At that moment the sense of a presence swung 
into my field of consciousness, and contracted my 
vague faculties to focus. Something moving in the 
sky above caught my eye. 

How shall I describe the sight? 

I saw an angel floating above the mountains. 

The figure, wingless, yet floating in erect grace, 
was of great size, and wrapped entirely in cloudy gray. 
The head was bare and slightly bent, as if looking 
down on earth. The movements were smooth and 
gliding, as a feather floats in the wind. The distance 
was too great — I judged about a quarter of a mile — 
for me to distinguish the features, but owing to its 
great size the figure was clearly visible and deeply 
inspiring. 

It was a vision on which none could look intently 
without feeling the weight of a mighty awe. It 
gathered up the wandering emotions of the heart, and 
all a lifetime's ideals of beauty, grandeur, sublimity, 
in one serene presentation. 

The vision floated on majestically, across the valley 
and the little town with its praying multitudes. In 
about three minutes It had passed, and was lost in 
the pearly mists of the gathering night. 

And whilst the vision lasted I was acutely conscious 
of that innumerable concourse of kneeling forms below, 
all struggling upwards to the Cross. 

It seems to me that the devout, of other faiths 
than that of Rome, lose much by not taking advantage 
of Lourdes. For many years, thousands of pilgrims 
from all corners of the earth have bent their steps 
towards the shrine, and poured out their souls in a 
passion of supplication. This tremendous concentra- 
tion of faiths love and fervent adoration, often ecstatic 



THE ANGEL OF LOURDES 177 

thanksgiving for answered prayer, must find an echo 
in the Heaven World to which they are sent. 

It is so easy at Lourdes to feel that the Throne of 
Grace has been actually reached, because one can sense 
the pathway, the ladder made by human love, praise 
and faith, down which, I doubt not, the Angels of 
God are always passing. It is easier to concentrate 
the mind in a place where religious thought has been 
poured out for many years, because one insensibly 
becomes calmed, and tranquilized, and aided by the 
atmosphere thousands of others have created. 

At Lourdes there is nothing to attract the scoffer, 
and thousands of hearts filled with reverence and 
devotion reenforce each year the already powerful 
vibrations, and leave the place the better and richer 
for their presence. 

How few people realize that they have never seen 
themselves ? How many can tell what they really look 
like? 

A very, very few can, and I am amongst the 
number. 

I wakened one morning in summer, and opened 
my eyes on my sunlit bedroom at home. Instantly I 
saw something which thrilled me with vivid interest. 
I saw myself! 

I was emerging out of a corner of the room, and 
composedly approaching the bed. There was no doubt 
as to recognition. I knew instantly I was looking 
on my own face for the first time, and it was something 
of a shock to discover that I was more or less of a 
stranger to myself. I saw how false a looking-glass 
can be. I had not begun to know myself. 

With absorbed interest I stared very hard, in my 
intense desire to imprint on my memory my own image. 



178 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

I approached the bed, and as I did so, I seemed to 
shrink, fade, and waver. Then suddenly I vanished 
— into my recumbent body. 

For a few minutes afterwards I was too concerned 
with my physical condition to ponder on the vision 
of my real self. I was tossing violently in the bed, 
in an inner distraughtness which was most disturbing. 
Then, as my nervous system began to calm down, I 
strove to imprint on my memory the recollection of 
what I really looked like. 

My face, even in the wonder of those few moments 
in which I had seen it, expressed emotions I had never 
seemed to know. Nothing was as I had believed it 
to be. All the traits that went to form my character 
needed readjusting, and all seemed curiously imperfect. 
I could not remember how I was clothed, though I 
had seen myself from head to foot. I suppose I was 
too engrossed in studying my face to think of my body. 

The vision left me with a blank sense of utter dis- 
illusionment and failure. Nothing in me was finished 
or complete. My expression suggested a character 
which was horribly crude, imperfect and rudimentary. 
Looking at myself afterwards in the mirror, I came to 
the conclusion that it lied, or that in waking life I 
wear a mask. 

It is salutary to behold one's spiritual portrait, a 
thing not visible to the mind alone but to the physical 
sight. In a flash comes the knowledge that dwelling 
in us are forces, not yet grasped by mortal mind, that 
cry for recognition. There have been moments in all 
lives, I believe, when a glimpse is caught of the 
Olympian heights to which it is possible to rise. 
Glimpses, alas ! of the evanescent thing we know our- 
selves in truth to be. 



THE ANGEL OF LOURDES 179 

Sometimes, on the Astral plane, it happens that 
friends meet under strange circumstances, and one 
figures largely in the doings of another. The memory 
of those noctural adventures is brought through and 
clearly recollected in the morning. 

One such occurrence I will relate, and it is peculiar 
and unusual. 

An old friend of ours, a man who has devoted his 
life to the development of his spiritual faculties (not 
to be confused with the development of mediumship 
and phenomena), had a series of dreams in which he 
appeared to be two people. He himself was the same 
tall, slender man he is in daily life, but in this psychic 
experience a much smaller man moved always on his 
left side, and somehow seemed to symbolize his waking 
personality. 

The central figure in one of these unusual experi- 
ences was a young man who was unknown to our 
friend, and who had died abroad. His body had been 
embalmed and brought home for burial, and our friend 
had been shown photographs of him, and had also com- 
municated with him through automatic writing. This 
much was imprinted on his physical memory. 

Now, whilst lying asleep one night, the spiritual 
counterpart of our friend became aware that the body 
of the young man was exposed and could be seen. 
His companion, or other self, the shorter man who 
moved by his side, shrank back with horror from such 
a suggestion, just as our friend would instinctively 
have done in waking consciousness, but he himself 
was determined to see the body, and went straight 
through a door facing him, into a room where it was 
lying on a low table. 

Now comes the moment when I began to figure in 



i8o GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

this experience. I was standing on the opposite side 
of the table, making vigorous passes over the young 
man's body, which appeared to be fashioned out of 
pinkish clay. The trunk and legs looked as though 
I had roughly modeled them with my hands. The 
head was more highly finished. It was sharp and 
distinct in outline, and our friend recognized it in- 
stantly as being a representation of the young man 
whose portraits he had seen. He stared at the face 
with great interest, and taking up a cloth, gently wiped 
the cheek where a fleck of foam lay. This action 
seemed to vivify the body, for it began to mutter and 
murmur indistinctly. Apparently it was alive, and 
not dead. 

Our friend relates that this discovery gave him 
such a shock that he lost the thread of memory which 
he was bringing back to his physical body on the bed. 
The next moment he woke up. My recollection, a 
perfectly clear one, of these happenings, was that he 
simply vanished from the scene, leaving me alone with 
the body, which I continued to manipulate. 

Afterwards, through automatic writing, our friend 
was told by the departed young man, that this astral 
vision signified the collecting of etheric matter to 
fashion a body in which he could function on etheric 
planes. 

On another occasion our friend had the experience 
of walking about on the other side with the young 
man, who was dressed in an ordinary tweed suit, and 
being taken by him to various acquaintances, to whom 
he was introduced. With the exception of the above 
experience, he believes that this was the first time he 
had ever seen him. The interesting point of both 
experiences is, that both I and our friend brought back 



THE ANGEL OF LOURDES 181 

on waking, a clear and similar recollection of the 
episode in which we were jointly concerned. 

This friend of ours is a disciple of " The Flaming 
Heart," called by Catholics "The Sacred Heart." 
He writes to me thus : — 

" I see now more clearly than before that the 
Christ self within uses its powers as a whole, just as 
the personal man uses intellect, will, and feeling, all 
three being energized by love, which is the element of 
interest in the several activities. 

" So the self of love works out and manifests as — 

Love and Life Beauty. 

Love and Power Goodness. 

Love and Knowledge Wisdom. 

" The Love element saves us from wrong living, 
wrong doing or wrong thinking. So we go from 
strength to strength, by yielding the lower self to the 
transmuting power of the Higher." 

It was long before I came to understand the full 
significance of the Flaming Heart. It was plain to 
see what its realization meant to our friend. He 
radiates an extraordinary serenity of mind, an atmos- 
phere of strength and peace, a calm in the midst of 
storm which apparently nothing can shake. Pre- 
eminently, when in his presence, one is conscious of a 
commanding power which will only be used for exalted 
purposes. This clear subjection of the lower self, to 
the transmuting power of the Higher self, has worked 
such marvels in him that one longs to grasp the secret 
of his success. 

A few years passed, and still the heart of the 
mystery eluded me. This year, 1918, it came to me 
in a flash. 



i82 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

The experience I am about to relate may have 
happened to many others. To me, it was a tremendous 
revelation. 

I was kneeling one morning in front of the Altar, 
at Early Celebration. I have always felt, through the 
Eucharist, the possibility of great spiritual develop- 
ment, and often there comes to me at such moments, 
a mystical response to the inner mysteries of the 
Sacrament. I have never looked for supernatural 
happenings, hallucinations, or psychic excitements, but 
my spiritual instincts are always alive and craving 
satisfaction. This they have never before received in 
any really lasting degree. 

Now came a new Divine illumination. 

Two clergymen were officiating at the celebration. 
I had just received the bread from the one, and had 
raised my head and hands to receive the cup from the 
other, when suddenly I went quite blind. 

The vicar, who was moving towards me, was blotted 
out. I stared at a black veil utterly impenetrable, and 
I was aware of a tremendous internal dislocation. 
My heart beat tumultuously, and felt as if thrust out 
of place. Then my sight was restored. 

I saw before me, not the man, 'bearing in his hands 
the chalice, but a flaming heart of fire, from which 
radiated out living, scintillating streams of golden 
light. They filled the background with their quivering 
radiance, and I was conscious of shrinking back, and 
bowing my head as the supernal vision approached me 
and enveloped me in Its aura. 

The cup had been transmuted by .Divine alchemy 
into the Flaming Heart of love's sacrifice, and I was 
given to taste of the living waters of Life. 

For a few minutes I was quite unconscious of where 



THE ANGEL OF LOURDES 183 

I was. I had been, indeed, caught up into the seventh 
Heaven. I know now that I acted mechanically, and 
to outward semblance I behaved in the orthodox 
manner, but when I raised my head again the vicar 
had passed on and the vision had vanished. Nothing 
had happened to distract the attention of others. 

I returned to my seat conscious that I had been 
taught the meaning and marvelous significance of the 
Flaming Heart. I understood the words of the great 
mystic, St. John. 

" In him was life ; and the life was the light of men. 

" And the light shineth in the darkness ; and the darkness 
overcame it not. 

" There was the true light, even the light which lighteth 
every man, coming into the world." 

I know that the Flaming Heart of Divinity dwells 
in the breasts of all humanity, that the soul is no 
empty shell, but the shrine of the Divine Presence, 
and that Presence is the Guide and Light of Life. 

I have seen revealed the inner mystery of the sacra- 
mental life. Through a rift in the veil of the material, 
the hidden life of eternity was symbolized for me in 
the Flaming Heart, the true Eucharistic Mystery. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE WRAITH OF THE ARMY GENTLEMAN 

TO some people life is an unspeakable tragedy; 
to others it is a mere farce. To all it is a 
profound mystery. 

What am I? Where have I come from? Where 
am I going? What is this mysterious ego that thinks 
and acts? 

From Darwin we learn that the human body has 
taken a million years to evolve its present form. Is 
it logical to suppose that there is no scheme of evolution 
for the immortal soul, in which it can preserve its 
individuality through the ages? The mills of God 
grind slowly, and what is seventy or eighty years in 
eternity, in which we develop the highest and most 
complex organism we can conceive of — the Soul? 

Five hundred and thirty-five years b. c. Pythagoras 
was teaching the reincarnation of the immortal soul 
in his celebrated school. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, 
Philo, Virgil, Cicero, Euclid, the Egyptians and the 
Hindoos taught the same doctrine. In the days of 
Christ the transmigration of souls was an accepted 
belief, and in 250 a. d. Origen, the greatest of the 
Christian Fathers, was still teaching the same doctrine. 
Justin Martyr recognized the presence of the Logos 
in Jesus, and Socrates and Clement of Alexandria 
affirmed that the same philosophy had brought the 
Greeks to Christ. To this day it remains the belief 
of three- fourths of the human race. 

184 



THE ARMY GENTLEMAN 185 

In our country, though a rapidly growing faith, 
Buddhism fails to command the attention it otherwise 
would, for two reasons. Firstly, we have never been 
a religious-minded people, and are now very much 
less so than formerly. What are loosely termed re- 
ligious subjects interest a very few, and bore intensely 
the great majority. Out of our forty-four million 
souls, a mere handful are interested in a future life. 
The rest prefer not to take the problem into con- 
sideration, though they are ready to accept a small 
dose of conventional religion, ready-made and pre- 
digested. Secondly, faith in the transmigration of 
souls in a succession of physical bodies only becomes 
an urgent mental necessity, a vitally necessary ex- 
planation of life's inequalities, to those who mix with 
the outcast poor. Such persons are again compara- 
tively few, and, to those of them who think, life with- 
out reincarnation is simply an incomprehensible and 
chaotic puzzle. 

Once the faith is grasped that life between birth 
and death is only a tiny fragment of the aeons allotted 
to us, in which to develop spiritually, divine harmony ; 
love and justice reappear. Only thus can one see light. 
But if the tardy growth of this all-sufficient illumina- 
tion is slow to take root, it must be remembered that 
to the ordinary, well-to-do person it makes no appeal. 

" Am I my brother's keeper? " is generally answered 
in the negative, and the hypocritical rejoinder, covering 
a mountain of selfishness, that it is an impertinence to 
pry into the lives of the poor, is the facile excuse for 
sitting at ease and cozening the conscience into the 
belief that the poor are God's affair. Even the devout 
and pious, who may feel deep compassion for the 
sorrow of the destitute, have no spur to prick their 



i86 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

mental apathy, unless they mix freely and constantly 
with the poor and oppressed. Only then will come the 
perplexed question : Where can I see in all this over- 
whelming misery the Divine hand of love and justice? 

The Christ who established his Brotherhood with 
us, by proclaiming God the Universal Father, told us 
that " Before Abraham was, I am," and I suppose 
that most people, who accept anything, accept the pre- 
existence of Christ. Yet how few of us can remember 
anything of our own past lives, and how merciful it is 
that we cannot. How utterly overwhelming such 
memory would be! The future is as carefully hidden 
from us as the past, yet our previous lives have been 
by no means unfruitful. 

The experiences we have gathered in the past years 
of this life are nearly all forgotten, yet our develop- 
ment has gone on, and the records are stored in the 
subconsciousness, sometimes to be pulled across the 
threshold and displayed in a complete panorama before 
the dying eyes. The statements to this effect made by 
those who have been resuscitated when at the point of 
death by drowning, are too numerous to be discarded 
as mere fables. 

Undoubtedly we all contain the germs of sin at 
birth, but few educated people now accept the state- 
ments that we are born sinful because our parents 
sinned, or because of the moral delinquencies of those 
of Eden. Certainly we all bear the consequences of 
others' sins, but the cruel injustice of a God who 
deliberately punishes present humanity for the sins 
of past humanity is too revolting a conception of the 
Creator to gain acceptance to-day. 

This very fact shows that we have advanced spiritu- 
ally. So base a conception of the Almighty is violently 



THE ARMY GENTLEMAN 187 

repugnant to serious thinkers. The intuitive con- 
sciousness of man postulates the over-ruling spirit as a 
power representing perfect justice and love, and the 
innate instinct to believe that we ourselves are in some 
mysterious way akin to this Divine Ideal keeps ever 
alive the belief in our Divine origin. 

What is the grand apotheosis of each human life? 
The Christ spirit; a scheme of regenerative redemp- 
tion, simple, natural, yet superlatively grand. 

If one asks whether the orbs in space take pre- 
cedence of personal will and intelligence, or personal 
will and intelligence take precedence of the orbs in 
space, one has only to ask whether builders or buildings 
have priority. Do pictures originate the artist? do 
books originate the author? If one begins to study 
with a belief in spirit as power and cause, one can 
account for all things, but to start with matter as a 
foundation is to fail absolutely to account for either 
matter or spirit. 

In some infinite womb the vital Heavens, the visible 
Universe must have existed before time was. We 
see all elements have their affinities, all stars their 
course, all atoms their polarity. We see the wheel of 
Ezekiel symbolizing the whole scheme and fabric of 
Nature. 

Heaven works not only with stupendous immensities 
but with small minorities. Atoms of unutterable 
minuteness are streaming into the unseen atmosphere 
every second from the souls and bodies of the human 
race. When the soul seeks, aspires after God, the most 
vital of all atoms go forth with the breath, as light 
from the sun to the earth. Surely we and our angel 
kindred inhabit one house of which the most distant 
provinces are in touch with the center of all. Heaver| 



i88 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

and earth are bridged by the spirit ladder of love, and 
the soul can inbreathe the spirit of God as the body in- 
breathes oxygen. 

The contemplative mind beholds every day the 
passage of things invisible into sight, the transfer of 
the seen into the unseen, and all is natural. The life 
throb of the palpable world is a pulsation going forth 
every instant from the eternal energy, drawing out by 
an ethereal medium from the invisible and intangible, 
that which is visible and tangible. 

I will speak now of the passage of a thing invisible 
into sight. How, to me, it became so I cannot tell. 
I don't know. 

One summer evening my husband and I were oc- 
cupying two communicating bedrooms in a London 
hotel, contiguous with one of the great railway sta- 
tions. We had to make an early start in the morning, 
and had come there to be near our train. 

I awakened in the early morning hours. The gray 
dawn was just beginning to show through the bars of 
the Venetian blinds lowered before the two windows. 
Those bars had not been adjusted, and they also ad- 
mitted a rather bright light from a street lamp. I 
judged it to be somewhere about four o'clock, but I 
did not look at my watch. I was too pre-occupied in 
looking at something else. 

My bare arm was stretched outside the coverlet, 
and I was aware that what had awakened me was a 
cold wind blowing on my skin. The furniture of the 
room was dimly outlined, and at first I vaguely threw 
my half-open eyes around without perceiving anything 
unusual, but gradually my senses, shaking off their 
drowsiness, became aware of movement between the 
bed and the window. Something tall and gray was 



THE ARMY GENTLEMAN 189 

wavering like a pillar of smoke betwixt me and the 
struggling daylight. I closed my eyes again with a 
creepy feeling, a disinclination to look again, but my 
bare arm, which still lay outside the coverlet, received 
another intimation that roused me to keen alertness. 
A chill wind was blowing over my skin. 

I drew in my arm hastily, and opened my eyes. 
That tall gray something had approached much nearer 
to me, and now I could distinguish with perfect clear- 
ness the figure of a man, but such a wavering, fluid 
form that one moment seemed on the point of dis- 
solving into thin air, and the next moment gathering 
itself together again in clear cut outline. 

For what seemed to me a long time I stared at the 
gray apparition. I felt a cold fear, a rigid horror 
creep over me, and but for the recollection of my 
husband's nearness, and the open door between us, 
I might have fainted from pure terror. I thought of 
calling to him, but something sinister in that wavering 
shadow made me desist. At times the form came quite 
close to the bed, but I could never. see 'the face clearly; 
it was vague and undetermined in outline, in fact, not 
completely materialized. Not for a second did that 
wavering movement cease, that floating, shimmering 
motion 'twixt bed and window, of what I knew to be 
the ghost of a man. 

How long this unpleasant state of things continued 
I do not know. I was perfectly well aware that a 
ghost should be addressed in sympathetic terms, 
should be asked if any human help can be rendered, 
but at the time it never once occurred to me to speak. 
Gradually, as I watched that retreating then advanc- 
ing form, 'at moments opaque, then almost transparent, 
I lost consciousness and fell asleep again. 



190 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

I was awakened a few hours later by a loud knock- 
ing at my door. I slid instantly out of bed, turned 
the key, and was confronted by the chambermaid, 
bringing my early tea. 

" Who was the man who killed himself in this 
room ? " 

Luckily, the woman did not drop the tray, as I 
hurled at her this abrupt question. She set the tea 
down on a table and turned to me a scared face, as she 
answered by another question: 

" How ever did you find out that? " 

" Never mind how I found out. Please answer 
me. I won't get you into trouble," I said firmly. 

" It was an army gentleman. He shot himself here 
the night before last. That's all I know," was her 
subdued answer. 

Poor " army gentleman " ! So you were revisiting 
the scene of your last tragedy, or had you ever left 
that confined space between four walls which wit- 
nessed the supreme mental agony of the suicide? 

What had prompted me to put that sudden question 
to the chambermaid? I could not tell. In the mo- 
ment of waking, slipping out of bed and opening the 
door, no recollection had come to me of my earlier 
experience, but betwixt that experience and my abrupt 
waking at her knock knowledge must have been some- 
how afforded me of the tragedy. I knew a man had 
done himself to death in that room shortly before I 
occupied it. 

A day or two afterwards I read an account of the 
inquest held upon the body. A rankling sense of un- 
just treatment had preyed upon his brain. 

Suicide whilst of unsound mind was the verdict. 
Poor " army gentleman," I fear I could have been of 



THE ARMY GENTLEMAN 191 

little service to you, even if I had opened up some 
form of communication between myself and your 
disembodied soul ! 

When one remembers how many persons occupy 
even one room in a hotel in twelve months, it seems 
natural that psychic phenomena should be common 
to such . houses. Undoubtedly many tragedies must 
be enacted in every hotel within a comparatively short 
space of time, and one may, in utter unconsciousness, 
occupy a bedroom in which, but the night before, mur- 
der or suicide has taken place. 

Some years ago, I had occasion to pass a night in 
one of the big West End hotels of London. It was 
very full, and I had to be content with a very indifferent 
room on the main entrance floor, and looking to the 
back. The window had iron bars in front of it, 
through which one could slip one's head, but not one's 
shoulders. The reason for the bars was obvious. A 
wide mews ran on a level with this floor of the house, 
and failing this obstruction any one could have 
stepped with perfect ease from the pavement into the 
room. 

Thrusting my head through the bars I could see 
from end to end of the mews. On the left there was 
no exit, on the right was a narrow lane running down 
the side of the hotel, and leading into the main thor- 
oughfare. The mews seemed very quiet, clean and 
respectable, and for one night only I decided that the 
room would do. I was very tired after passing two 
nights in a train, and went early to bed and fell asleep 
at once. 

I ascertained afterwards that I had been sleeping 
for five hours, when I was suddenly awakened by a 
loud noise of scuffling feet, accompanied by a gurg- 



192 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

ling choking sound, as if some one was struggling to 
find utterance, to gain breath. 

To be awakened by a noise out of a sound sleep is 
always a startling, uncomfortable experience. If the 
astral body has been wandering far afield, it has to 
return to the physical body in far too great a hurry 
for comfort. There is always more or less of a dis- 
locating jar under such circumstances. The startled 
sensation is greatly accentuated when, in place of 
waking to dead silence, one awakens to unaccountable 
and very unpleasant sounds. 

I lay perfectly still, with every nerve tingling, and 
every muscle taut, and listened intently. The noise 
came from the window which was shut, and my heart 
began to beat more thickly with a dread and terror 
which had neither form nor shape. Slowly I remem- 
bered the mews outside, and felt instantly thankful 
that because of its proximity I had shut the window, 
instead of sleeping with it wide open, as is my cus- 
tom. 

Was murder taking place out there? What was 
that hideous, choking sound, that surged in with gut- 
tural gasps from out the darkness, and which sug- 
gested nothing so much as a frenzied struggle of loath- 
ing and agonized fear? 

I lay shuddering and quaking as with the grip of 
ague. My imagination instantly constructed the scene 
so vividly suggested by the nature of the sounds. A 
man's hands were on the throat of a woman, and he 
was deliberately strangling the life out of her strug- 
gling body. I was sick with unspeakable agonies of 
dread, and for quite five minutes I could not sum- 
mon force or motion to my limbs. 

If some unfortunate was being done to death it was 



THE ARMY GENTLEMAN 193 

clearly my duty to run to the window and give the 
alarm by shrieking " murder," but now I began to 
wonder if that awful struggle was taking place outside 
or just inside my room. Though the mews was well 
lit my blind was drawn down, and the room was in 
darkness, except for a faint reflection shining in from 
a street lamp. I had only to stretch out my hand in 
order to switch on a light above my bed, but a paralysis 
of fear held me. 

That noise of infinite pain, of frantic, dying agony, 
those convulsive, ghastly groans and scuffling of feet, 
and wrestling, writhing bodies, were spell-binding be- 
yond the power of human conception, and the most 
awe-inspiring fantasy. I tried to reason with myself, 
but the horror scattered all reasoning, yet a sense of 
duty, of natural humanity, and anger with my own 
fears, kept tugging at me. It seemed as if the sounds 
were losing force, were beginning to die out. I was 
lying still in abject terror, whilst a fellow-creature 
was being deliberately done to death. 

A blind fury with myself, and the murderer, sud- 
denly superseded fear. Without turning on the light 
I jumped out of bed, and knocking up against the 
furniture in my haste, I dashed towards the faint 
light coming in from the street. In another moment I 
had thrust aside the blind, and thrown the window 
wide. I know I shouted out something ; I have no idea 
what. I thrust my head out between the iron bars, and 
looked to right and left. I could see absolutely noth- 
ing. The street was quite empty, and so well lit 
that I could see from end to end of it. 

I drew in my head, and stood there silently, and 
quivering still with excitement, as one does when 
awakened with the broken fragments of an evil dream. 



194 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

Then, suddenly, a sensation of bristling fear took 
possession of me once more, unreasoning and un- 
reasonable fear, clutching at my heart with a grip of 
ice. The noise had not ceased, it continued more 
faintly, and it came from a corner of my room to the 
right of the window. Murder had been done in the 
room in which I now stood, and was being re-enacted 
now. The certainty rushed on me with the force of 
a whirlwind. 

I was dimly conscious of human voices in the mews, 
of a window being thrown open. My cry had 
awakened other sleepers. I left my window open, 
and let the blind fall before it. Then I crept softly 
across to the opposite side of the room, wherce the 
dying sound proceeded. The victim was almost dead. 
I could hear nothing but a gasping, rattling sigh, and 
then silence. The silence of death. 

I was roused from my trance of horror by the 
measured tread of a policeman outside. I heard him 
speaking with others, then, seeing nothing to account 
for the disturbance in the mews, he went away again, 
and I fell asleep from utter mental exhaustion. 

When I awoke the sun was in the room, and I 
looked towards the corner where the tragedy of the 
darkness had been enacted. How peaceful and inno- 
cent the room now looked, in the light of a cheerful 
summer morning, and how thankful I was to know 
tliat I would be far away from it in a very few hours. 

Yet another hotel story comes to me as I write. 

My sister and her husband came to Torquay to 
spend a couple of nights and took rooms in one of the 
principal hotels. They had not announced their ar- 
rival beforehand, and the manageress took them up- 
stairs to see several vacant rooms. There was one 



THE ARMY GENTLEMAN 195 

not shown to them, but the door was wide open, and 
my sister seeing that it was unoccupied walked in, and 
said she preferred it to any of the others, because of 
its particular view. 

For some unknown reason the manageress was 
greatly against their taking it; she raised every sort 
of objection, but my sister was firm, and finally the 
li^gg^ge was carried up and she began to unpack, 
whilst her husband went down to order tea. 

After a few minutes, and whilst she was on her 
knees beside the trunk, she heard some one moving 
in the room behind her, but she could see nothing. 
It occurred to her, however, that some tragedy might 
have taken place in that particular room, which would 
explain the reluctance of the manageress to let them 
hire it. Not being of a nervous disposition, my sister 
thought no more of the matter, and went downstairs 
to join her husband. 

That night she was awakened by something, she 
never knew what, but on opening her eyes she saw a 
rather disturbing vision. Close to the door stood the 
figure of a man, looking straight towards her. His 
figure was brilliantly luminous, and stood out clearly 
and distinctly in the darkness of the room. 

She awakened her husband, who sat up in bed and 
stared back at the figure. He saw it as clearly and 
distinctly as his wife saw it, and for some considerable 
time they watched it, until it gradually faded out. 

What is so sad is that they did not address this 
ghost. They had every opportunity, for at the same 
hour the same figure appeared the next night. It 
never tried to approach them : it simply stood there 
quietly for about an hour, and then vanished. Prob- 
ably it was the wraith of a suicide. The fact remains 



196 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

that very few people do address the ghosts they see. 
Even if they are not afraid, it never seems to occur 
to seers that to speak to the disembodied might be a 
very kind and helpful thing to do. 

On their return home my brother-in-law told this 
story to some friends at his Club, and a stranger who 
was present said that he was aware there was a haunted 
room in that Torquay hotel, for he knew some one else 
who had seen it. 




CHAPTER XVI 

AN AUSTRIAN ADVENTURE 

NLY once did I ever see an elemental of the 
terrifying type, and I have no desire to re- 
peat the experience. 

Several years ago I was traveling alone on my way 
to Bohemia. With me, in the railway carriage, I had 
an aluminum traveler's typewriter, enclosed in, and 
fastened down to a leather case. I had also a large 
leather dispatch box, containing several chapters of a 
new novel I was writing, and which I meant to finish 
whilst abroad. 

At the last moment, just as I was starting on my 
journey, a friend had given me a small Russian ikon, 
and I had put that in the box with my writing ma- 
terials. 

On reaching the frontier into Austria, I got out with 
the other travelers, carrying the typewriter in my 
hand to ensure its safety. A porter brought along the 
dispatch box, and the luggage from the van to the 
Custom House. 

I had nothing to declare and said so, but when the 
officials came to look at the typewriter and the con- 
tents of the dispatch box, their civil attitude changed, 
and I was curtly told that I would have to remain be- 
hind, in order that a more thorough examination 
might be made. 

There was little use in expostulating, no one took 

197 



198 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

the smallest notice of any explanations I made, and 
I had the unhappy fate to behold all my fellow travelers 
stream out onto the platform, and make for the wait- 
ing train, and the growing- conviction that they would 
proceed on their journey without me. 

When alone with the officials I had the field to my- 
self, and I explained that I was a British subject, and 
a British novelist, but they merely looked at me with 
the same blend of incredulity my fellow countrymen 
so often favor me with, when they accidentally dis- 
cover that I am synonymous with the writer, Violet 
Tweedale. 

How well I know the look and the words accom- 
panying it : " Are you Violet Tweedale, the novelist? 
Well! who'd have thought it? I never would have 
guessed." 

Their expression says plainly enough, " You don't 
look capable of writing out a laundry bill, far less a 
novel." 

Seeing that my statements made no impression upon 
the Customs officials, I resigned myself to an unknown 
fate, and in a few moments, looking through the open 
door, I had the misery of seeing my train glide out of 
the station, leaving me behind. 

An animated conversation now began which oc- 
cupied at least ten minutes, and my typewriter and 
dispatch box were subjected to a most rigid scrutiny. 
I kept on imploring the officials not to break the type- 
writer, but they paid no heed, and at last, after playing 
about with it for some time, they requested me to give 
them an exhibition of its powers. Alas ! it was too 
late. The machine was thoroughly upset with the 
rough fingering it had been subjected to, and I could 
not get it to work. 



AN AUSTRIAN ADVENTURE 199 

I saw that this fact was set down as another black 
mark of suspicion against me, and they then began 
another long discussion upon the ikon. I began to be 
so bored and tired that I sat down on my trunk, lit 
a cigarette, and attempted to preserve a certain amount 
of outward calm, whilst mentally I raged furiously 
■within, 

I noticed that a messenger had been sent out of 
the room, but could not catch the object of his errand. 
When all chattering and gesticulating together, they 
abandoned ordinary German, and fell into a dialect 
of their own which I could not understand. 

In a few moments the messenger returned with 
two more officials, and a waiter from the station 
restaurant. The waiter was given a chapter of my 
novel — each chapter had an ordinary exercise book 
to itself — and told to translate my English into Ger- 
man. 

I presume he honestly tried to do his best, but the 
translation bore no resemblance to the original. Even 
the officials soon wearied of the fumbled nonsense, 
and the waiter was sent away. 

Then the head official informed me that I might 
continue my journey by the next train, but I must 
consider myself under arrest, till further information 
concerning my business and identity was obtained. 
He informed me, finally, that I was a Russian spy. 

I retaliated by informing him that I was a British 
subject. That my husband was at that moment in 
Bavaria, and directly I could communicate with him 
he would obtain my release through our Embassy at 
Vienna. Never did I regret anything more than my 
own stupidity in having left my much-vised passport 
behind me in England. 



200 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

The typewriter was then closed down, tied with 
string and heavily sealed. I was ordered to carry it 
myself, and place it in the very center of an empty 
luggage wagon. 

As I complied it flashed upon me that they had 
never seen a typewriter before, and suspected it to be 
a sort of infernal machine. My dispatch box disap- 
peared altogether, and I got into a first-class carriage, 
accompanied by two very smart attendants. They 
wore cocked hats, much gold braid, and many gold 
buttons, and they each carried a sword and a revolver, 
with which to shoot me, I presume, if I tried to run 
away. 

We three were not alone in the carriage. In a 
corner sat a dark man with a small black mustache, 
and smoking a very long cigar. He was neatly dressed 
in a long dust coat, and on his smooth black hair he 
wore a brown Homburg hat. In one dark eye was a 
single monocle, through which he regarded me with 
a mild surprise. 

I saw at once that if I was to be burdened with the 
constant society of my two officials for several days, 
the only thing to do was to make friends with them. 
The circumstances had not arisen through any fault 
of theirs, and they had to obey the orders of their 
superiors. Both were men who looked between the 
age of thirty to forty, and they had quite pleasant faces. 
I began by offering them cigarettes from my case — 
no Customs officials object to enough tobacco being 
carried to last out a journey — and they accepted my 
civility with profuse thanks. 

The man in the corner still regarded us from time 
to time with interest, and when we had finished our 
cigarettes he leaned forward and most politely offered 



AN AUSTRIAN ADVENTURE 201 

us each a big cigar. The voice of this person so 
amazed me that in refusing with thanks, and saying I 
never smoked cigars, I looked very closely at him. 
The voice w^as that of a cultured gentlewoman, and 
that was exactly what this person turned out to be. 
Not a man, but a woman dressed exactly to resemble 
a man. When she stood up I saw that she wore a 
divided skirt, and by the manner in which my guards 
addressed her when they accepted her cigars, I knew 
that she was some great personage. Later on I dis- 
covered that she was a member of the Imperial House 
of Austria. She spoke English perfectly, and I ex- 
plained my position, which seemed to amuse her im- 
mensely. We found that we had mutual friends, 
and we were chattering most amicably when I reached 
my destination. 

Evidently a wire had preceded us, for other of- 
ficials were waiting on the platform to take possession 
of the typewriter, and I said good-by to it, as I thought, 
forever. 

The amazement of the hotel manager may be 
imagined when he saw me arrive under escort. 
Though I had engaged my rooms he had never seen 
me before, and I was secretly uneasy lest he should 
refuse to take me in under the circumstances, but my 
attendants appeared to possess unlimited authority. 
I was shown into a good bedroom at the very end of 
the corridor. The manager spoke perfect English, 
and I explained my position from my point of view. 
He was quite civil, but I thought rather non-committal. 
He evidently did not like the situation, but at that 
moment I had a stroke of luck. 

There entered the head waiter, carrying the usual 
paper of identification which one always fills in abroad. 



202 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

His face was quite familiar to me. I never forget a 
face, but I cannot always fit a name to it. Where 
had I seen this man before? Then in a flash I re- 
membered. It was in Egypt. 

When I had filled the paper, both men remaining 
in the room, I recalled myself to his memory, and the 
occasions when he had waited upon some members of 
our royal family, to whose table I had been bidden. 
These occasions had been of comparatively recent hap- 
pening, and though possibly not being quite sure in 
his recollection of me, he remembered our royal fam- 
ily perfectly, and several little personal incidents 
that had occurred whilst we were all in the same 
hotel. 

For instance, there had been a very brilliant ball 
given at the hotel, and the royalties had looked on 
for several hours, and included me in their circle. 
This man had been specially detailed to wait upon the 
circle, all the evening. 

This conversation produced a great effect upon the 
manager, who volunteered to make matters as easy as 
he could for me, till the Embassy moved. The officials 
would sit by the door, and not at my table during 
meals, and they would be accommodated with chairs in 
the corridor by the top of the staircase, instead of out- 
side my bedroom door. He regretted that they would 
closely follow me whenever I went out, but doubtless 
I would communicate with my husband at once, and 
the mistake would soon be corrected. 

After I had had some tea, I began to feel quite 
light-hearted, and I unpacked and wrote to my hus- 
band in Bavaria. 

That night when I went to bed I locked my door 
securely, and composed myself to sleep after a tiring 



AN AUSTRIAN ADVENTURE 203 

and disturbing day. I had been in a railway 
" sleeper " all the night before, and though I sleep 
like a top in a train, I am always unusually sleepy on 
the following night in bed. 

It was summer-time, and very hot weather, and my 
blinds were drawn up and the window thrown wide 
open. No houses faced me; I looked out on a big 
public garden. 

I was soon fast asleep, but was awakened again by 
some noise in the room. I lay still for a little, listen- 
ing intently, all the unpleasant incidents of the past 
day rushing back upon me. The noise was not contin- 
uous, but now and again came the sound of something 
soft, dragging about the floor. The room was fairly 
light, with the glow of a waning moon, and I judged 
the hour to be between two and three o'clock. 

At last I determined to astertain what produced this 
curious sound. I had an electric light over my bed, 
and I sat up and suddenly switched it on. 

Then I realized with horror that I was in the pres- 
ence of something I had never encountered before, 
but had often read and heard of. An elemental of a 
malignant type, and of grotesque form. 

Just for an instant I saw nothing but what looked 
like an enormous pillow, but suddenly out of this 
grayish-green pillow emerged a head of frog-like shape, 
and two bright yellow eyes were fixed on mine. I 
suppose I was too terrified even to remember what my 
sensations were. A sort of paralysis of fear and hor- 
ror held me spellbound. There it squatted, thrusting 
out its misshapen head, its yellow eyes regarding me 
fixedly. I have no idea how long it remained there, 
or how long we continued to gaze at one another, but 
I gradually became aware that it was receding from 



204 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

view. It grew smaller and smaller, and dimmer and 
more indistinct, till at length it vanished altogether. 

Elliott O'Donnell mentions in one of his books hav- 
ing seen such creatures, and of having had a number 
of such cases reported to him, but generally as the 
forerunners of illness. To such phantasms he has 
given the name of " Morbas," and he believes that 
certain apparitions are symbolical of certain diseases 
" if not the actual creators of the bacilli from which 
these diseases arise." This seems to me to be a reason- 
able explanation of such phenomena, but in my case 
there was no disease in question. I was perfectly well 
at the time, and remained so. It is possible, however, 
that a sick person might have occupied my room the 
night before. One never knows in hotels, and I had 
not then read O'Donnell's explanation and made no 
inquiries. Many of the experiences related in his 
deeply interesting books are no doubt regarded as fic- 
tion, but I know that they are cases common to very 
many psychics. 

For some time I lay awake, fearful of a recurrence 
of the horrible phenomenon, but gradually sleep over- 
came me, and I did not wake again till seven o'clock 
on a lovely summer morning. 

That day I took two long walks, closely followed by 
my escort. They walked immediately behind me, and 
often we stopped to converse, or to sit down to rest 
and smoke a cigarette together. They told me all 
their family history, and about their wives and chil- 
dren, and really they made themselves as agreeable 
as they possibly could. In the afternoon we climbed 
up the mountains to one of the many cafes, and had 
chocolate and cakes, which they thoroughly enjoyed. 



AN AUSTRIAN ADVENTURE 205 

When I finally went back to the hotel for the night 
they complained of being tired, and hoped I would 
not walk so far on the morrow. Their idea of en- 
joyment was the usual foreign custom of taking a 
seat outside a street cafe, and sitting there hour after 
hour idly watching the passersby, smoking endless 
cigarettes and drinking beer. 

That night I prepared myself for a recurrence of 
the abnormal phenomenon I had witnessed, and gath- 
ered up all my courage, and decided to attack it with 
the Sacred command. For a long time I lay awake, 
but nothing happened, and finally I fell asleep. 

I awoke to pandemonium. My room was in a hub- 
bub of high-pitched noise. Screams of glee and frolic, 
shouts of thin laughter, and pattering feet with little 
thuds interspersed. The sounds were all pitched in 
an unknown key. They can best be described as or- 
dinary sounds intensely rarefied, and pitched in so 
high a treble that they had run out of the scale alto- 
gether. 

It was a much darker night, and very hot. Thunder 
clouds hung over the town, and now and again there 
was a gleam of lightning and a mutter of distant 
thunder. I peeped over the edge of the bed, but could 
see nothing. The noises continued with unabated 
merriment. A hundred creatures of sorts apparently 
were playing round me. 

Summoning all my courage I sat up and switched 
on the light. What I saw must read like pure non- 
sense to the majority, but nevertheless I mean to re- 
cord facts as they happened to me. 

About a dozen small forms, half-man, half-animal, 
were playing leap-frog round the room. They were 



2o6 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

about three feet in height, some sHghtly smaller, and 
though their bodies, legs and feet were human, their 
heads resembled apes. 

I forgot all about being afraid, they were so amaz- 
ingly grotesque, and they were so thoroughly happy. 
One would go down on all fours, and the creatures 
immediately behind him would leap his back, and so on 
down the chain, and all the while they kept up that 
shrill, high-pitched note of intense enjoyment. 

I have come to the conclusion that it was the light 
that finally put an end to their revels. They took no 
heed of me, but gradually their energies flagged, they 
faded and became blurred in outline; one by one they 
simply went out like sparks until not one was left. 

Though I occupied that room for a month I was 
never disturbed again. Perfect quiet reigned for the 
rest of my stay. 

At the end of five days a police official came to call 
upon me, and informed me that my identity had been 
perfectly established by the British Embassy at Vienna, 
and that my escort was now withdrawn. He also 
begged to return my typewriter, rendered utterly use- 
less I discovered, to my great dismay, and the dis- 
patch box arrived intact the next morning. 

I have no explanation to offer of the phenomena 
I have described. They belong to the many unsolved 
mysteries that constantly surround us. It will be said 
that my mind was in an excited and abnormal con- 
dition owing to my adventures in the Customs House, 
and that I probably imagined the scene instead of 
really seeing the creatures I have described. 

I agree that probably my mental faculties, for the 
time being, were possibly abnormal, but I hold that 
when the consciousness is in an abnormal condition 



AN AUSTRIAN ADVENTURE 207 

it is naturally much easier to see the abnormal. At 
ordinary times the veil of the flesh seems denser, and 
the consciousness much less acute. 

The question seems to me to hang more on the query 
— do such creatures actually exist, than on the argu- 
ment did I, or did I not see them? There are crea- 
tures living in the physical world quite as horrible to 
look upon as the astral entities I saw. The octopus 
and some apes, for instance. Innumerable people of 
unimpeachable veracity have testified to seeing gro- 
tesque and hideous creatures, which can only be placed 
in the category of astral denizens, and in that category 
I place the phemomena I certainly witnessed on two 
successive nights. 

The following story has been given to me by a bar- 
rister who kindly allows me to give his name: 

E. F. Williams, B.A. 

Trinity College, Cambridge. 

" It is clear that Needle Jim was murdered by the 
proprietor, Corbett of the Tally Ho, and that his 
wraith haunted the spot. Horses appear to be as 
sensitive as dogs are to apparitions, and there are 
several instances on record where horses have been 
the means of bringing murder to light. 

" It is a difficult matter, indeed, to be asked to write 
a ghost story if you do not believe in ghosts; however, 
I will endeavor to relate the nearest approach to one 
which has come within my knowledge. 

" The winter of the year 1849 was an exceptionally 
severe one, very heavy falls of snow and deep drifts 
in many places, especially in the neighborhood of 
Worcester, near which the scene of my story lies. 



2o8 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

" It was, in those days, the custom of packmen as 
they were called, to travel around the country with 
various assortments of goods — calHng at the various 
farmhouses and cottages offering their wares for sale; 
some would have cutlery, some laces and ribbons, but 
the packman with whom we are concerned carried 
pins, needles, and such like, hailing from Redditch, 
where they are manufactured. He used to go his 
round four times a year, and was known by the name 
of Needle Jim. 

" About the beginning of January, in spite of the 
snow, Jim left Worcester for Upper Onslow, Clayton 
and Broadway, with a view of going to Cleobury 
Mortimer, Wyn Forest, and back to Redditch. Ap- 
parently he was seen at Onslow and Clayton, but after 
that, there was no further trace of him. 

" Now at the village of Broadway, there is a little 
cider house called the Tally Ho, and a few cottages. 
The road is narrow, with three very sharp corners, 
protected only from a very steep dingle by an ill-kept, 
low, out-of -repair hedge — very dangerous on a dark 
night. The old proprietor of the inn, named Corbett, 
lived there with his old wife, and was in the poorest 
of circumstances, the customers at the inn not being 
very numerous. Nothing more was heard of Needle 
Jim. 

" Now opposite the Tally Ho, on the far bank of the 
dingle, was a piece of ground facing the south, and 
old Corbett thought it would make an excellent cherry 
orchard. So the hitherto impecunious Corbett bought 
a portion, and when he had bought it he fenced it 
round, and from the opposite side it looked exactly 
the shape of a coffin, and the coffin piece it is called to 
this day. 



AN AUSTRIAN ADVENTURE 209 

" At the time of which I am writing, it was permis- 
sible after a man had been hung, for his relatives to 
take the body away home for burial. One day, two 
men arrived at the Tally Ho, with such a body fastened 
across the back of a horse ; tying up the horse they went 
into the inn for some refreshment, shortly to be called 
out by a woman who said the horse, burden and all, 
had jumped over the hedge into the dingle and was 
lying at the bottom. They hurried down and there 
found the horse with his neck broken and his ghastly 
burden under him. It was a curious fact that after 
the disappearance of Needle Jim, horses approach- 
ing this corner broke into heavy sweats and showed 
great signs of fear, and a number of people pre- 
ferred to travel by the longer route, via the Hundred 
Horse. 

" Some years ago some alterations were being made 
to the front of an old hotel in a little country town 
about five miles from the scenes depicted above, and 
on raising the large flagstone of the bottom step, there 
was discovered the skeleton of a man with his skull 
smashed. The old folks declared it must be the body 
of the missing packman; anyhow, after the discovery, 
the spirit or ghost seems to have departed from the 
precincts of the Tally Ho. 

" Now I am not a believer in ghosts or their allies, 
but when I was a small boy I went on my pony accom- 
panied by two servants, who were taking a parcel to 
a house next door to the Tally Ho, and whilst they 
were inside the house, all at once the pony snorted and 
started full gallop for home as hard as he could go; 
we parted company going down a steep hill, and I have 
often thought it was a good thing for me we did, for if 
he had bolted into his stable (which he did do) I 



210 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

should probably have had my head smashed, as the 
doorway was very low. 

" Still, I do not believe in ghosts, I think it is more 
convenient not to ! " 



CHAPTER XVII 

ACROSS THE THRESHOLD 

ONCE Upon a time I had an interesting experi- 
ence showing how often one may be in the 
presence of the disembodied without being in 
the least aware of the fact. 

It was a bright, cold day in October, with a biting 
wind and brilliant sunshine. About midday I was 
walking up a long avenue leading to a great house. 
On either side of me, for a mile or so, lay flat, open 
grass country, pasturages full of grazing cattle. The 
trees bordering the avenue stood at about thirty feet 
apart ; they were gigantic beeches of considerable age. 
Their silvery trunks of wide girth were smooth and 
straight, and in no way impeded the view on all sides. 
The avenue was wide and straight and bordered by 
grass out of which the trees sprang. 

As I turned in at the lodge gate I noticed, without 
any particular interest, a woman walking in front of 
me, but in a very few moments I began to pay more 
attention to her obvious peculiarities. She was about 
twenty-five to thirty feet ahead of me, moving in the 
same direction, and the view I had of her back began 
to puzzle me. On that decidedly chilly morning she 
wore a white muslin dress, a material never used out 
of doors even in summer in that northern clime. Over 
her shoulders floated something mauve and flimsy, and 
on her head was what looked like an old-fashioned 
poke-bonnet. 

211 



212 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

Her back looked young, and yet she was a creature 
of a bygone century, and knowing every one within 
a twenty-mile radius of where I walked I speculated 
as to who she could possibly be. 

Perhaps what puzzled me most was how she had 
managed to avoid the attention of the village children, 
who would at once have been alive to the novelty of 
her whole appearance. I looked forward to hearing 
all about her at the big house, and as seemed highly 
probable, meeting her face to face and obtaining an 
introduction to her. 

Then it suddenly occurred to me to overtake her 
and pass her; we were both walking very slowly. I 
at once quickened my steps, but somehow I never 
seemed to gain on her. Even this did not rouse in 
me the faintest suspicion of being in the presence of 
a disembodied soul, it merely sharpened my curiosity 
and urged me to greater efforts. 

I moved from the road to the grass which I calcu- 
lated would deaden the sound of my footsteps, then 
I began to run. 

Still no success! The lady never turned her head 
to right or left, but was clearly aware of my pursuit, 
for apparently without the least effort she kept her 
distance from me. 

At the moment when I was feeling rather baffled 
and very much puzzled I caught sight of my friend, 
N., in the distance coming to meet me. " Ah ! " I 
thought, as I at once slowed down to draw breath, 
" she will have to pass her and she'll tell me what her 
face is like." 

I kept eyes and attention closely fixed on the two 
figures as they drew nearer and nearer to one another. 
Now the stranger appeared to be exactly at an equal 



ACROSS THE THRESHOLD 213 

distance between us, when, lo ! she simply vanished 
as utterly and entirely as the electric light one switches 
ofif in a room. One second there she was, perfectly 
and clearly visible, the next second, there she was not. 
I looked foolishly around, though I knew that neither 
to right or left was there any hiding-place, moreover 
my eyes had been fully upon her when she vanished, 
flicked out- 
How well I remember N. running up to me and 
without any greeting, we both simultaneously burst 
out — 

" Did you see her? " 

N. told me that the inside of the poke-bonnet was 
empty. The lady had no face. 

Of course we gazed around and searched behind 
the boles of the trees, but we were both aware how 
foolish any such proceeding was, for we had both been 
staring hard at her when she disappeared. 

There was a bygone tragedy connected with that 
part of the avenue, but on discussing the matter with 
the owner of the great house we all had to come reluc- 
tantly to the conclusion that the woman we had seen 
had no connection with that story. A former Lady 
Dalrymple had been murdered by one of her servants 
in the avenue about a hundred years previously, but 
the portraits of the deceased and the lady we had seen 
bore not the smallest resemblance. It was said that 
" Lady Dalrymple walked " — a tall, massive figure 
clad in a dark, heavy cloak sprinkled with snow. She 
had been done to death one January night in a snow- 
storm which had hidden her remains for several days. 
The apparition we had seen was that of a very 
slender girl or young woman. The interesting fact 
that I wish to emphasize is that had this young drama 



214 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

in muslin turned aside, slipped through the light fence, 
and struck off across the fields it would never have 
occurred to either N. or me that she was not physical. 
We would have speculated as to who she was, but out 
of common civility we would not have followed her. 
We would have made casual inquiries as to who she 
was, simply out of curiosity aroused by her peculiar 
attire, and then the trifling incident would have been 
forgotten. 

That sudden vanishing has rooted the experience 
firmly in my mind, and I have long since become 
convinced that the little story I have just told is an 
extremely common one. I believe such disembodied 
spirits are constantly with us, and that many of us 
see them, pass them in the streets, stand beside them 
in crowds, and accept them perfectly naturally as 
physical entities in no way different from what we are 
ourselves. 

Many people believe that our faculties have a limit 
beyond which we cannot go, but this is certainly not 
so, as it is now proved that some people have the 
X-ray sight by nature and can see far more than others. 
This faculty has nothing to do with keenness of sight, 
it is a question of sight which is able to respond to 
different series of vibrations. Undoubtedly there are 
many entities about us who do not reflect rays of light 
that we can see, yet who may reflect those other rays 
of rates of vibration which can be photographed. 

It is extremely difficult for the average person to 
grasp the reality of that which we cannot see with our 
physical eyes, and to realize how very partial our sight 
is, yet science continually demonstrates to us worlds of 
teeming life of whose very existence we should be 
ignorant so far as our senses are concerned. 



ACROSS THE THRESHOLD 215 

What ought clearly to be grasped is the fact that 
we are not separated from the so-called dead, save by 
the limitation of our consciences. We have not lost 
those gone before, we have only lost the power to see 
them, and very occasionally that power is restored to 
us, by what means we know not. All visible things are 
the result of invisible causes, and doubtless those deni- 
zens of the subtler worlds come amongst us with a 
distinct purpose in view. Sometimes that purpose can 
be traced to remorse, revenge, a quest, a strong attrac- 
tion to the scene of a crime, but in many other cases 
no object can be discerned. 

The condition of the observer is constantly found 
to be absolutely normal. The mental conditions of 
both myself an N. were, as far as we could tell, quite 
normal. Our mental activity was no greater, no more 
vivid or more accurate than usual, yet we both saw 
an object that was beyond normal sense and rational 
vision. 

The fact that so often there is no connecting link 
between the apparition and his or her surroundings 
induces me to believe that we are everywhere sur- 
rounded by the denizens of the other world, and on 
rare occasions we catch a glimpse of them. 

Here is another utterly trivial story which empha- 
sizes the above suggestion. 

I was lunching with my husband in a house built 
within the last fifty years. The only former occupants 
were known to us. We were discussing a letter I had 
that morning received and I said: "I'll go and fetch 
it for you to read." I rose and left the dining-room, 
and pushed open the half -closed door of the adjoining 
drawing-room. 

What was my astonishment to behold standing in 



2i6 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

the middle of the floor a tall, dark man, a total stranger. 
He stood exactly between the door and a large bow 
window, through which poured a flood of sunshine, 
and I paused involuntarily and stared at him. Not 
that there was anything the least peculiar about him, 
and, indeed, his air of great respectability instantly 
banished the flashing thought of " Burglar." 

The stranger returned my stare with perfect com- 
posure, and in a second or two during which we re- 
garded each other I had time to observe his appear- 
ance. He was well dressed, all in black, with a mod- 
ern, black broadcloth frockcoat buttoned close. He 
was very tall and strongly built, his face was sallow 
and heavy featured, and he wore a short, black beard. 
I bowed and addressed him : 

" I'm sorry ! I didn't know any one was waiting. 
Do you wish to see me or my husband ? " I said po- 
litely. 

The man made no reply, but at once began to glide, 
not walk, towards a closed glass door leading to a 
conservatory on the left. His eyes never left mine. 
Without opening the door he passed through it and 
vanished. 

Then I realized and darted after him, throwing 
open the door and staring beyond. Nothing! Noth- 
ing physical could have passed through a glass door 
without shattering it, and that is all there is to this 
story. The man had no connection with us nor, so 
far as we could learn, with the former occupants of 
the house. 

A very old friend of mine, Mrs. Sinclair, wife of 
the late Sir Tollemache Sinclair's second son, told me 
of an experience she and her mother once had when 
visiting a cousin, Major Fetherston Dilke, of Max- 



ACROSS THE THRESHOLD 217 

stoke Castle, Warwickshire. The Castle is ancient and 
surrounded by a moat, and within the moat lies a ten- 
nis court. In order to reach their rooms on the 
ground floor, Mrs. Sinclair and her mother had to 
pass through a great stone hall filled with fine old 
oak and armor. Beyond that their way lay through 
the remains of an old chapel, which once had been ex- 
tensively damaged by fire. 

One evening after playing tennis till rather late, 
Mrs. Sinclair and her mother hastened indoors to 
change for dinner. As they passed through the chapel 
Mrs. Sinclair saw her mother suddenly shrink back 
against the wall; at the same time she exclaimed, 
" Oh, May, stand aside and let that person pass." 

Mrs. Sinclair looked round, but could see no one. 
Again her mother cried out insistently : 

"Oh, do let her pass." 

" But no one is here," Mrs. Sinclair assured her. 
Then seeing that her mother looked terrified she took 
her by the arm and hurried her to their rooms. 

When the door was shut Mrs. Sinclair tried to 
soothe her mother's agitation, and asked her what she 
had seen, and why she was so disturbed. 

Her mother replied : " There was a young woman 
in the corner who was trying hard to escape observa- 
tion, and the sight of her gave me the most uncomfort- 
able feeling. She was not a maidservant, and wore 
no cap. She was dressed in a mauve print gown with 
a violet sprig upon it. She might have been a needle- 
woman." Mrs. Sinclair calmed her mother as well 
as she could, and they went down to dinner together. 

During the meal what was her horror to hear her 
mother say to their host, " Oh, William, I feel sure 
there are ghosts in the Castle. I've seen one to-night." 



2i8 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

There was a most uncomfortable silence after this, 
and Major Fetherston Dilke looked terribly agitated. 

After dinner, when the ladies were alone in the 
drawing-room, Mrs. Dilke asked Mrs. Sinclair what 
they had seen, and on being told she explained that 
before a death in the family a certain housekeeper, 
who had been murdered, always haunted the chapel, 
and in consequence of this warning always coming 
true her husband was exceedingly nervous of this ap- 
parition. Nothing more was said upon the subject 
during Mrs. Sinclair's stay, but before the end of the 
year Major Fetherston Dilke lay dead. 

Such warnings are very common, and very hard to 
understand. They suggest that the apparition knows 
of the approaching death of a certain person, and that 
it has the power to make itself visible to certain per- 
sons, at certain times. Why this warning should be 
given is a baffling mystery. Again, why did not Mrs. 
Sinclair see this ghost when her mother so plainly 
saw it? 

The fact is that all sorts of most unlikely persons 
see apparitions, even the rankest unbeliever and the 
most matter-of-fact individual, and they generally see 
them at most unexpected moments. 

I remember one day walking along a country road, 
and seeing a dog-cart in the distance coming towards 
me. As it drew nearer I saw that it contained (the 
late) Lord Wemyss, and on recognizing me he drew 
up and jumped down. 

" I've got a confession to make to you," he said. 
" I wouldn't tell any one else for the world. I'd have 
the life chaffed out of me. I've actually seen a ghost," 

" I'm not in the least surprised. Why shouldn't 
you see a ghost ? " I retorted. 



ACROSS THE THRESHOLD 219 

"Well! I never believed in them, and I didn't 
think I was the sort of man who'd ever see one. Now, 
if it had been Arthur Balfour there would have been 
nothing in it. He's a member of the Psychical So- 
ciety, and all that sort of thing." 

" But being a member of the Psychical Society 
does not predispose one to see ghosts," I expostulated, 
but Lord Wemyss remained very puzzled. 

He told me that when about half a mile from his 
own front door at Gosford. East Lothian, he saw a 
man walking in front of him in the same direction, 
going towards the house. In a vague sort of way he 
wondered for a moment where this man had suddenly 
sprung from, as he had not noticed him before, but 
there was nothing unusual in his appearance to arouse 
curiosity. He was a stranger and looked like a fore- 
man in his Sunday clothes. 

Lord Wemyss walked on, always keeping about ten 
yards between himself and the stranger. At a certain 
point he fully expected he would strike off by a path 
leading to the servants' and tradesmen's entrance, but 
rather to his surprise, the man did no such thing. 
He pursued an undeviating course towards the main 
entrance, and on observing this Lord Wemyss became 
more interested, and looked at him more closely. 

Still there was something remarkable to be observed, 
and concluding that the man, being a stranger, did not 
know of any other entrance, he quickened his steps m 
order to come up with him. In this he failed — the 
man kept his distance, and just as he reached the door 
he vanished from sight. 

I tried hard to persuade Lord Wemyss to tell this 
story to Mr. Balfour, who was so intimate a friend, 
but I believe he never did so. The interest lies in the 



220 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

long time, during a half-mile walk, in which the ghost 
was under observation, also in the fact thjt until the 
man disappeared on the doorstep Lord Wemyss had 
never suspected that the stranger was other than or- 
dinary flesh and blood. 

So many people have confided their ghost stories 
to me, and swore me to secrecy, that I am convinced 
such experiences are very common, and only remain 
hidden either from fear of being laughed at or from 
being thought to suffer from hallucinations. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

HAUNTED ROOMS 

HOW is it that one can " feel " a room is 
haunted? What is it that gives one the 
strong impression that there is something 
unpleasant about a certain room, a something that 
sets it apart, as a place to be avoided? 

The mind operates with the senses. It receives 
impressions through the air as sound, or through the 
ether as sight, and so forth. Through the various 
senses we catch the vibrations of consciousness be- 
longing to our environment, near or far. Psychically 
developed persons possess an increase of sensibility 
which enables them to see, hear, and feel more acutely 
than most people. Wherever some great mental dis- 
turbance has taken place, wherever overwhelming sor- 
row, hatred, pain, terror, or any kind of violent pas- 
sion has been felt, an impression of a very marked 
character has been imprinted on the astral light. So 
strong is this impression that often persons possessing 
but the first glimmer of the psychic faculty are deeply 
impressed by it. But a slight temporary increase of 
sensibility would enable them to visualize the whole 
scene. That such impressions should be imprinted on 
the astral light is no more wonderful than ordinary 
photography, or the impression of the human voice 
upon the cylinders of a gramophone. 

To me, a haunted room is always full of shadows. 
That is how I see it. That is one of several ways by 



222 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

which I distinguish it from other rooms. Other peo- 
ple do not always see these shadows, and the room may 
actually be flooded with sunshine when I enter it for 
the first time. This makes no difference to what I see. 
The shadows are there, despite the sunshine. 

There are long-drawn-out shadows, which seem to 
take their rise in the corners of the room, and creep 
across the floor. They are not motionless, but in 
constant vibration and re-formation, like smoke drifts. 
Such shadows are not of a uniform gray, but tinged 
by dull colors, dark red, sulphur yellow, muddy brown. 
In a haunted room there is always a shadow above 
one's head. A hovering cloud between the ceiling and 
midway to the floor. 

Then there are the sensations I feel when entering 
a haunted room. Little shivers run through me, and 
what I take to be nervous excitation sets all my spine 
jangling, and the tiny nerve threads quivering. The 
sensation of icy cold water trickling down my back is 
most unpleasant. 

At times a profound melancholy falls upon me, 
often blended with a poignant compassion for some 
one, I know not whom. At other times a sensation 
of violent repulsion invades my being, which has ac- 
tually, in some cases, produced physical sickness. 
Again, there is the helpless feeling, and that is the 
hardest to bear of all such psychic disturbances. The 
feeling that something is about to occur in that room 
which I will be powerless to ward off. 

What can one do when paying a visit if one is 
ushered into a bedroom by one's hostess which one 
instantly knows to be " unhealthful "? I cannot find 
a better word to describe many a haunted room. This 
experience has several times happened to me, and 



HAUNTED ROOMS 223 

unless I know my hostess very well, I am obliged to 
sleep in this unhealthful atmosphere. 

On one occasion I was invited to dine and sleep 
with some old friends, who had taken on lease an old 
castle in the neighborhood of St. Andrews, where I 
happened to be staying. They had only been in resi- 
dence for a month or two, an old brother and an old 
sister, whom I had known all my life. 

In spite of this long friendship they were not the 
sort of people to whom I could have said, " Would 
you mind giving me another room? The one you 
have selected for me is haunted, and if I remain in it 
I will have no sleep. I shall not even dare to try to 
sleep, but shall have to keep awake all night to ward 
off the evil." They would have been both shocked 
and indignant at such a suggestion, and probably have 
concluded that I had gone stark staring mad. 

I had accepted a seat in a carriage belonging to 
some friends in St. Andrews, who were also going to 
the castle to dine, but who were returning to sleep in 
their own homes in the town. 

It was twilight when we drove up the long avenue, 
and caught a first glimpse of the exterior. A typical 
old Scotch castle, very large, with high-peaked roofs 
and pepper-box turrets, and all built of gray stone. 

About an hour before dinner I was conducted to my 
room. My evening dress was already spread upon the 
bed, and the housemaid was arranging my toilet ar- 
ticles on the dressing-table. 

" I think you will be comfortable here, my dear," 
said my kind hostess, and I thanked her with a sinking 
heart as she went away. 

As the housemaid prepared to follow her I said, 
" Am I the only person sleeping on this floor? " 



224 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

She answered, " You are the only one in this wing, 
miss." 

" It is a very laree house, I suppose ? " 

" Twenty-six bedrooms," answered the housemaid, 
" but we've shut up most of them. This one has such 
a good view that Miss Young thought it ought to be 
used." With that she went away, and T looked round. 

Six lighted candles and a big wood fire seemed only 
to accentuate the profound gloom and depression of 
the large, irregular room. The very first thing I did 
was to throw a towel over the face of the mirror on the 
dressing-table. Then I investigated every nook and 
corner. 

There was a powdering closet formed in a pepper- 
box turret. The carpet of the room stopped short at 
its door, and inside the boards looked loose and un- 
even. I fetched a candle and soon discovered that 
the floorboards lifted up quite easily, and beneath 
them was a black yawning hole, an oubliette, through 
which wretched prisoners were cast in days not so long 
ago. 

I replaced the boards, telling myself that in the 
morning I would have a look at the outside of this 
black shaft. It probably ended, as most of such places 
did end in the old Scotch castles, in a big dungeon 
underground. 

Inside my big room there were sloping ceilings, and 
great beams, and an enormous fireplace had been 
bricked up to suit more modern requirements. There 
were two doors, the one I had entered by and another 
which was locked and keyless. The window, with the 
view, was hidden by heavy red curtains, and the at- 
mosphere was musty and dank, like that of a vault. 
As I stared around me I could not help thinking 



HAUNTED ROOMS 225 

what an unfortunate thing it is to be born without any 
imagination. Any one possessed of a spark of that 
quaHty would have hesitated before putting a young 
guest into so gloomy a chamber, the only room occu- 
pied in that wing. 

" No sleep possible here," I told myself grimly, as 
I began to dress. Then I set myself to " feel after " 
what was really wrong with the room. Supposing I 
did fall asleep, what would happen ? Would some one 
come and try to strangle me in the night? That had 
actually happened to many people. Would I suddenly 
awake to the fact that some one unseen was pulling off 
the bedclothes? That was also a trick common to 
ghostly visitants. 

Gradually I gathered impressions, very unpleasant 
ones. I became positively certain that I was being 
watched intently. Some one, present in the room, 
though unseen by me, was watching my every move- 
ment. That some one violently resented my occupa- 
tion of the room, was intensely hostile, and meant to 
make things nasty for me later on that night. Wher- 
ever I moved I felt that malignant eyes followed me, 
and I kept glancing over my shoulder at every crack 
of the furniture, and the scratching of a mouse in the 
wainscot. It was in the stretches of dead silence that 
the presence became most imminent, most menacing, 
and I had a strong instinct to set my back against the 
wall and face right out into the room. 

Again I was confronted by the mirror problem. I 
had become certain that it must remain covered. If 
I looked into its surface I knew I would see something 
horrible. Something kept whispering to me, " Never 
mind how you look, never mind if your bodice is all 
awry, or your skirt all askew, or your hair all bulging 



226 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

out on one side. Don't uncover the mirror if you 
value your sanity. What there is to be seen can only 
become visible in the mirror. Don't worry after ex- 
planations, or why this should or how it could be. Do 
as I tell you. Keep the mirror covered and when you 
come up to bed keep your back to the wall." 

Dressing was a very rapid process that night, and 
when completed, so far as circumstances would allow, 
I found I still had twenty minutes to wait until the 
dinner gong would ring. I sat down with my back 
against the wall, and surveyed the depressing apart- 
ment with a gloomy anticipation. Where was that 
stealthy watcher, whose baleful eyes I felt were 
fixed upon me? I could see nothing. I could only 
feel acutely that I was not alone, and that I was " in 
for " an awful night. 

Oh! to get away, and leave that malignant unseen 
watcher in undisputed possession of his dismal abode! 
I was quite certain of the gender! Then a chance of 
deliverance flashed over me. I could return after 
dinner to St. Andrews with the friends who had 
brought me. But I had accepted the invitation to stay 
the night. What possible excuse could I make for 
cutting short my visit? In this case the truth was no 
use; in fact, worse than useless. Not only would my 
host and hostess utterly fail to understand what I was 
talking about, but they would be exceedingly indignant, 
and look upon me as absolutely insane. 

As falsehood had to be resorted to, I surely could 
invent some plausible excuse that would hurt no one's 
feelings, but the only excuse I could think of was ill- 
ness. I must tell my hostess that I feared I was " in 
for " an illness of some sort, and the wisest thing 
to do was to drive back to St. Andrews and be laid up 



HAUNTED ROOMS 227 

in my own bed. The most hospitable person would 
rather not have a sick guest under her roof. The 
excuse I proposed to make seemed to me to be the one 
most likely to be accepted without much fuss. 

I did not determine upon this plan without a certain 
amount of wavering. " After all," I told myself, " it 
is only for one night, and what can this entity do but 
give you a very creepy and disturbed night. You 
will have to sit up against the wall, and defend your- 
self by the power of the Cross, bidding it begone, in 
the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 
This you may have to do many times, but the night 
won't last forever, and you had best try to make the 
best of things, and not risk offending old friends." 

It did seem hard that I dared not tell the truth. 
Had the entity been in the flesh how easy it would 
have been. Who has not, at some time or another in 
her life, found herself unwittingly to be an unwelcome 
guest, and made to feel " if you don't go away at once 
you will regret it " ? Sometimes one comes across per- 
sons who for some private reason dread being over- 
looked, or who love their hermitage so dearly that they 
refuse to be amiable, to even the most swiftly passing 
guest. Old people are often like that, every one 
knows, or has known, of such people in the flesh. Yet 
how few believe that such unpleasant traits persist just 
a? strongly after so-called death, as before. What 
should suddenly change a man's whole disposition the 
moment he " shuffles off this mortal coil " ? 

I felt I was now in the presence of one who dreaded 
being overlooked, and who sought to get rid of me by 
every device in his power. 

Whilst thinking thus my mind was irrevocably 
made up for me. 



228 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

My attention was suddenly drawn towards a soft 
stealthy noise. Padded footsteps. Something had 
come near, and was creeping warily round in front of 
me. I felt the eyes upon me. I was being regarded 
more closely. What was about to follow? 

I leapt to my feet, and raising my arm made the 
sign of the Cross. " I bid you begone, in the Name 
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." 

There was a moment's pause of utter silence. The 
atmosphere struck suddenly chill as ice. A curious 
sensation of emptiness crept over the room. I was 
alone, but for how long would I remain alone ? 

I hurried downstairs and tried to play my part, 
and during the course of the evening I told my false- 
hoods as naturally as I could. At half-<past ten I drove 
off to St. Andrews with a light heart, and an utter 
indifference to the consequences. 

I believe that my falsehoods did not, however, 
" go down," for I never was asked again to that house. 

Perhaps it was as well, for I certainly never would 
have set foot in it again, and I had sacrificed the truth 
quite sufficiently upon this one occasion, 

I had no difficulty in finding out what sort of reputa- 
tion the castle bore. Every one agreed that it was 
haunted. I asked one elderly woman who had lived 
all her life in St. Andrews, and who knew the whole 
country intimately, what she thought of S. Castle. 

" Horrible, haunted old place. I can't think how 
the Youngs could have taken it," she replied. 

" But what sort of ghosts haunt it? " I asked. 

" Old Sir James and his son. They were in league 
with the Devil, and the son, another James, used to 
murder people and throw them down into the dungeon. 
He was beheaded in the reign of Charles the First." 



HAUNTED ROOMS 229 

" Have you known any one who has ever seen any- 
thing? " I persisted. 

" No, but my father remembered as a young man 
seeing a pile of human bones being removed from the 
dungeon, and buried in the churchyard. The late 
people lived to be very old, and always kept Sir James' 
wing shut up. Now the place has changed hands, 
and probably the Youngs will never be disturbed. 
They are installed in the most modern part of the 
house, and won't need to use the haunted wing." 

It must not be supposed that all haunted houses or 
rooms are unpleasant to live in. People in the flesh 
are either pleasant or unpleasant, disturbing or tranquil 
to live with, and so it is with their astral counterparts. 
When they elect to haunt the scenes of their old 
activities some ghosts are so inoffensive that they can 
be lived with under the most tranquil conditions. 

One autumn we took a shooting lodge in the far 
North of Scotland, and though I recognized at once 
that it was frequented by an entity from the " other 
side," I experienced no uneasy feelings whatever. 

We had not been in residence longer than three 
hours before this ghost put in an appearance. 

We were in a lively confusion of unpacking and 
settling down. Several large trunks had been carried 
upstairs, and set down on a wide corridor on to which 
the bedrooms opened. 

I was on my knees unpacking one of those trunks, 
our dog " Pompey " was seated beside me superintend- 
ing matters, and my maid was standing at my side 
waiting to carry various articles into the different 
rooms. The hour was midday, and the early autumn 
sunshine flooded the house. 

Suddenly " Pompey " growled, and turned towards 



230 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

the staircase, with all his hair bristling. I also looked 
round and saw a tall, quite ordinary man mounting the 
staircase. 

I thought nothing of this, supposing him to be the 
factor whom we expected, and I rose to my feet at 
once. He came on along the corridor straight to- 
wards us, and looking directly at us, but when within 
about ten feet from where we stood he suddenly 
vanished. 

I heard my maid give a sharp exclamation, and at 
the same instant " Pompey " made a furious dash at 
the spot, and growling angrily began to pursue some- 
thing invisible to us, down the stairs. 

I followed as quickly as I could. I feared " Pom- 
pey " would be lost if he ran out into the deer forest 
surrounding us on all sides. I caught him at the deer 
fence, edging the vegetable garden, and induced him 
with some difficulty to return to the house. 

My maid and I compared notes. What I had seen 
accorded exactly with what she had seen. She soon 
got over her uncomfortable experience, and though I 
never saw this entity again, I often felt him near me. 
He was, however, of so colorless a personality, that 
he never proved in the least disturbing to any one in 
the house. 

At the time of which I write the Astral Plane was 
not so generally recognized as an actual residential 
quarter as it is now. In these days a halfway house 
for the soul was not considered necessary for Protes- 
tants. They either went direct to heaven or hell, 
according to their manner of life on earth. The 
Catholics alone had their Purgatory, to which the de- 
parted souls repaired, there to slough off the passions 
of earth and fit themselves for higher realms. 



HAUNTED ROOMS 231 

Purgatory and the Astral Plane mean the same 
thing now to the vast majority of thinkers. A half- 
way house for the soul. A condition of consciousness 
interpenetrating this earth, which may actually be 
visited under certain conditions by those still possessing 
a physical body, an abode so contiguous to this world 
as to make the words of the Poet literally true — 

" All houses wherein men have lived and died are 
haunted houses." 

In these days I used to get severely chaffed on the 
subject of the Astral Plane. Frivolous young things 
would say to me, " Hello ! been on the Astral Plane 
lately?" 

One day I was undergoing a certain amount of good- 
natured chaff from a number of young people at Dun- 
robin Castle. I defended my beliefs vigorously, and 
at last the present Lady Londonderry, then Miss 
Chaplin, the Duke's niece, challenged me to pick out 
the haunted room in the Castle. 

I had never at that time been in any part of the 
building save in one bedroom, and the public rooms. 
I at once took up the challenge, and the Duke remarked 
that I had my work cut out for me, as several of the 
rooms had a reputation for being haunted. 

I replied that I would undertake to pick out a room 
where life was still actively carried on by those who 
had suffered something terrible on that spot in the 
past, and who were now denizens of the Astral Plane. 

A small crowd of us then started, led by Miss 
Chaplin, and we went from room to room. She 
opened the door and remained with the others on the 
threshold. I walked into each room alone and 
gathered impressions. 

In several of the rooms I felt the presence of astral 



232 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

entities, but nothing of a strong or unpleasant nature. 
At last we came to a room occupied by a maid, sitting 
alone, sewing, and I felt instantly that my quest was 
at an end. 

There was a sharp atmosphere of anguish that was 
quite unmistakable; some ghastly tragedy had taken 
place within those four walls, but I said nothing before 
the sewing woman. I felt drawn towards the window, 
the trouble was centered there. If I remember rightly, 
the room was high up, and overlooking, not the sea, 
but a paved courtyard. 

I walked back to the others with my finger on my 
lip, and Miss Chaplin closed the door behind me. 

" We need not go any further ; that is the haunted 
room," I said, in a low voice that could not reach the 
woman inside. 

" You're right. You've found it," was the answer. 

I heard the story when we went downstairs, but 
I can only recollect that it had to do with a Lady 
Sutherland, who had been brutally flung out of the 
window. 

I will now relate a curious incident of haunting by 
elementals, and it will be seen that such hauntings 
may quite easily appear to the ordinary observer as 
an abnormal occurrence to which no clue can be given. 

What is an elemental? It is only when the mystic 
has advanced in her studies that she discovers how 
manifold evolution is, and how small a part humanity 
really fills in the economy of nature. 

When the microscope is used myriads of germs of 
life, unsuspected by us, are revealed; even so the 
invisible planes connected with this earth contain 
myriads of forms of life, of whose existence most of 
us are unconscious. When we read of a " good or bad 



HAUNTED ROOMS 233 

elemental " it must always be either an artificial entity, 
or one of the many varieties of nature spirits that is 
meant. I will deal now with a case of the artificial 
variety. 

Such elementals are fomied out of the elemental 
essence lying behind the mineral kingdom. It is the 
monadic essence, or material used in creation, or it 
may be called the outpouring of Divine force into 
matter. This elemental essence is marvelously sensi- 
tive to human thought, however fleeting. It responds 
instantly to the vibrations set up consciously or un- 
consciously by human will or desire. The influence 
of thought can mold a living force, good or evil, into 
an existence, evanescent or lasting. Such shapes 
possess a certain appropriateness to the character of 
the desire which calls them into existence, though they 
generally possess distortions, either unpleasant or 
terrifying. 

Persons who play with, or use for some malign 
purpose. Black Magic, generally have a swarm of such 
semi-intelligent entities surrounding them, and pro- 
fessional Black Magicians can call artificial elementals 
of great power into existence, and use them for their 
fell designs. 

As a rule, however, the enormous inchoate mass of 
entities, known as elementals, are beings of human 
thought creation, created in no malicious spirit, but 
more often the result of curiosity, and tampering with 
a very dangerous power, as yet little understood. The 
amateur magician on passing over to the other side by 
no means loses his taste for the grotesque and abnor- 
mal, and often continues to play pranks on those left 
behind, by means of the dangerous powers he has ac- 
quired whilst on earth. 



234 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

I was visiting some old friends in the South of 
England. Some years before they had succeeded to 
a fine inheritance, and it was the first time that I had 
stayed with them in that house. I did not experience 
any uncomfortable sensations in the bedroom appointed 
to me. It was early summer-time when there is but 
a short spell of darkness, and I was on such intimate 
terms with my hostess, herself a psychic, that I had 
only to say I disliked the atmosphere of my bedroom, 
to have it changed. 

The former mistress of the house had been a very 
remarkable woman whom I had known intimately. 
She was brilliantly clever and accomplished, and 
charming to talk to, but unfortunately she took a 
vivid interest in occultism of the wrong sort — in 
Black Magic. Anything to do with spells, witchcraft, 
elementals, incantations, attracted her enormously, and 
she had a very considerable knowledge of the subject. 
I have no doubt she could have worked a great deal 
of mischief had she been so inclined, but luckily her 
designs were more impish than malign. 

I often warned her that there was undoubted danger 
in such researches, and that she was certain to attract 
about her elementals of a most undesirable kind, but 
my warnings went unheeded, and to the time of her 
death her interest in the dark subject never flagged. 

She had not died in the house I had come to stay in, 
but it occurred to me as I dressed for dinner that I 
was in her old bedroom. 

This suggestion came to me suddenly, and to the 
accompaniment of a sound. A sound more felt than 
heard, a sound known to the spirit rather than to the 
ear; a tiptoe silence hovering on the brink of sound's 
threshold. 



HAUNTED ROOMS 235 

My surroundings gave a very pleasant impression. 
A glorious sunset was flooding the west. My room 
was full of golden light, and the window was flung 
wide to the warm summer air. There was nothing 
to be recorded either ghostly or uncanny, yet some- 
thing was present which made me uncomfortable. 
Strange thoughts, bizarre fancies, found lodgment in 
my mind, and I stood rigid, listening intently. The 
room was full of secrets. They seemed suddenly to 
creep forth and whisper together. 

There it was again ! that soft echo of a sound which 
was like no other sound. An eerie, uncanny sensation 
crept down my spine, a strange, undefinable feeling of 
uncertainty, not yet amounting to fear. I moved 
towards the corner of the room, whence the sound 
proceeded, and as I approached, out of that corner 
dropped down a huge gray moth, a second dropped 
down after it, and both lay with outstretched wings on 
the white coverlet of the bed. 

Now I have always had a peculiar antipathy to 
moths, the big furry sort. I can handle a spider, and 
bear with a black beetle, but with big woolly moths I 
cannot live happily. I saw one once under a micro- 
scope, and it was covered with horrid looking parasites. 
I am aware that other creatures are similarly afflicted, 
but this microscopic vision accentuated my horror of 
all big moths. They seem to me repulsive, sinister, 
and uncanny creatures. The curious thing is that 
though I dislike them they adore me, and I always 
know that if there is one in my parish it will find me 
out. 

On this occasion I felt a very natural desire to laugh 
at myself. Of course, the creatures had at once dis- 
covered me, and this was all that had resulted from 



236 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

my uncomfortable sensations. A feeling of scorn 
swept over me. Two moths had rustled softly. 
Could anything be more banal, more commonplace? 
I flung a towel over them, and finished dressing. 
Then I rang for the housemaid. 

When she came I told her she must accomplish the 
destruction of the occupants of my bed. I could see 
no moths flying about outside, but nevertheless the 
window must be kept closed till I opened it again in 
the dark, before getting into bed. 

She told me that she was always particular to close 
the windows before bringing in a light, as the bats 
were a nuisance. I assured her that I had no objection 
to a room full of bats, but I could not sleep in a room 
full of moths. She promised to look about the room 
whilst it was still light, and destroy any she found. 
I closed the window myself and went down to dinner. 

We were but three women present ; my hostess, my- 
self, and a friend of ours, and we spent a delightful 
evening together talking of old times. 

That night, before beginning to undress, I blew out 
my candle, and throwing up the window I stood look- 
ing forth upon enchantment. It was still light, with 
a luster that filled all space, and it seemed wicked 
to shut out such beauty. Westward the stars were 
pale, but southward one great dull red star shone low 
down on the horizon. The owls were haunting the 
gardens with their banshee notes. It was a night for 
the revelation of the fairy folk, elves and pixies, fauns 
and dryads, elfins, nymphs and satyrs. A night when 
she tells her secrets to her lovers in the psalmody of 
nature, when the spirits of earth, fire, air, and water 
utter softly to human souls, if they will but incline the 
ear to hearken to the message. 



HAUNTED ROOMS 237 

If I want a definition of God I shall go, not to the 
bell and the book, but to a starlit, fragrant garden, 
where I can look long and deep into the passion of 
Creation's eyes. I will be as the old gray poet who 
wrote — 

" I am he that walks with the tender and growing night, 
I call the earth and sea, half hid by the night. 
Press close magnetic, nourishing night, I 

Night of the South wind, night of the large, few stars." 

Across the hushed magic came silver sweet the 
strokes of eleven from the village church, and the 
spell was broken. I closed the window, lit my candles, 
and prepared for bed. 

Just before extinguishing my lights, and re-opening 
the window, I carried a candle to the side of the bed 
with a box of matches. What was my horror on dis- 
covering that the turned-down bed and both pillows 
were liberally strewn with enormous gray moths. 
The sight was extraordinary, I literally could not 
believe my eyes. I stood there staring, and mechani- 
cally counting them. Twenty — thirty. I turned 
back to the dressing-table with the candle still in my 
hand. What was I to do? If I had the courage to 
destroy them, what sort of condition would the bed be 
in after? 

I am writing of actual facts, and without the least 
exaggeration. The smallest of those moths must have 
been quite an inch long in their fat gray bodies, and 
quite three inches long across the wings. I thought 
I knew most moths by sight and name, but I had never 
seen any like these before. What depressed me most 
v/as the fact that moths are attracted by candle-light. 
I had been burning four candles for quite twenty 



238 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

minutes, and not a moth had forsaken the bed for the 
flame. I was positively certain that they had not 
flown in whilst I stood in the dark of the open window. 
They were far too big and numerous to have escaped 
observation. What was I to do? I could not use 
that bed, and I now felt a strong repulsion for the 
room. I regretted deeply that the household must all 
be in bed, because I knew that no description I could 
give would convey anything like actuality, and the 
truth was certain to appear wild exaggeration. 

I made up my mind at once. I knew there were 
several unoccupied rooms on either side of me, and 
taking my lighted candle I placed it, still lit, in a basin 
on the marble-topped washstand. It should remain 
lit all night, and in the morning I would come to search 
for victims. The other candles I extinguished, all but 
one to take with me, and leaving the window still 
shut I softly left the room. I entered the next bed- 
room and approached the bed. Of course, there were 
no sheets, but the white dust sheet covering the 
blankets was spotless — there was not a moth to be 
seen anywhere. Blowing out my candle I opened the 
window, and getting into bed between the blankets I 
was soon fast asleep. 

I awakened to glorious sunshine, and looked at my 
wrist watch, which I had placed beside my bed. Six 
o'clock and a lovely warm summer morning. 

I jumped out of bed, full of curiosity regarding my 
visitors of over-night, and returned to my own room. 
Not a trace of a moth to be seen anywhere. The 
candle had burnt itself out, no singed wings or black- 
ened bodies lay near. The window was shut. I threw 
it wide, and then I went round the room shaking cur- 
tains, looking behind pictures, and climbing on a chair 



HAUNTED ROOMS 239 

I examined the top of the wardrobe. Not the faintest 
signs of the great gray drove of the night before. 
Where could they all have vanished to ? 

I gave it up, and got into my own bed, to await the 
advent of my early tea. I hated having to tell the 
housemaid that I had been driven into another room, 
but I knew she would find out the fact for herself. 
She was obviously incredulous, and assured me she had 
thoroughly searched the room, and seen but two 
winged creatures ; those she had removed from the bed. 
I had seen for myself when coming to bed that the 
window had remained shut. She had often seen one 
or two brown moths in the rooms at night, but she 
owned that never before had she seen huge gray ones. 

The matter was left at that, and during the day I 
told my hostess of my adventure, and she at once 
ordered the room I had slept in to be prepared for me, 
in case I might encounter the same difficulties again. 
I dressed for dinner in the moth-room, without catch- 
ing sight of one. When bedtime came we three 
women all entered the room together. 

On approaching the bed, and looking down on it, 
no one spoke for a moment. Then my fellow guest 
exclaimed : 

" Well, I must say that if I had not seen this with 
miy own eyes I never would have believed it." 

The bed was liberally sprinkled with large gray 
moths. 

My hostess shivered. " Come away, and let us 
shut the door. It's too horrible," she said. 

During the remainder of my visit I was perfectly 
comfortable in my new room, and the curious fact 
must be stated that after I had left the moth-room 
the moths forsook it too. I could discern a pitying 



240 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

incredulity in the housemaid's attitude towards me 
afterwards. She had seen but two, and she did not 
believe in the drove. 

My hostess and friend who had witnessed the 
phenomenon at once agreed that there was something 
more in it than an entomological curiosity. I would 
have given much for the opinion of a naturalist. 
What, I wonder, would he have made of that fat, gray 
flock sprinkling the bed? What species of moth 
would he have declared them to be? 

I have searched in many books since and never found 
anything the least resembling them, and I retain my 
original, firm belief that they were nothing more or 
less than a flock of elementals, sent forth as a prac- 
tical joke by a practiced magician on the other side. 



CHAPTER XIX 

" THE NEW JEANNE d'aRC " 

BEFORE writing on the above subject, which 
is proving to-day of absorbing interest to a 
very large number of people, Protestant as 
well as Catholic, I will point out a curious fact that is 
occultly connected with it. 

At certain periods in our normal life, certain sub- 
jects lying quite outside our earthly experience begin 
quite suddenly to be talked of and written upon. 
No one knows why, no one, outside occultism, can even 
form a conjecture why such subjects should suddenly 
obsess the brains of a considerable number of persons, 
why they should crop up in the most unexpected places, 
or why they should form the foundations of a consider- 
able mass of literature. 

It would appear as if they were floating in the air 
at some particular time, and masses of people catch 
them up like germs, and carry them about until their 
power is exhausted. 

I will give an instance. In the years just before 
the war " The Great God Pan " drifted across our 
mental horizon and was at once drawn into our aura. 

No one knows anything about ** The Great God 
Pan." He is supposed to belong to mythology, but 
novelists of distinction at once began to write upon 
him, not one after the other, but simultaneously. I 
read at least three thrilling novels in which he figured 

241 



242 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

largely, and I myself was impelled to write a novel 
upon the same subject. 

I began the book knowing nothing of the god, 
beyond what I could gather from the London Library, 
and Frazer's " Golden Bough," but as I proceeded 
I was conscious of new information drifting in from 
without, and on finishing the book I found that other 
authors had been at work on the same subject. 

" The Great God Pan " appeared on the stage, and 
a popular actress sang a song about him. One heard 
his name mentioned constantly in society, and hideous 
stories were told of him in Bohemian art circles. He 
was the bugbear of the seance room, journalists men- 
tioned him in quite serious articles, and I once heard 
his name spoken from a pulpit. 

The bare fact of this seemingly inconsequent 
disease (for it almost amounted to a disease with 
us) drifting into our stolid British atmosphere was 
not curious to the occultist, who is aware that at cer- 
tain times, certain subjects are flooded in on us from 
" the other side " by those who have our welfare at 
heart. 

I never heard any explanation of why Pan should 
have come here to play quite an important part in our 
mental lives, or why he should have obsessed so many 
of us for about a couple of years. The more one 
discovered about him the less one liked him, but 
psychics are led to believe that there are many schemes 
of evolution hovering about us, and interpenetrating 
our own, though not visible to our normal con- 
sciousness. 

It may therefore be that " The Great God Pan " 
did actually come into our atmosphere, and thus his 
individuality impressed itself upon those whose minds 



" THE NEW JEANNE D'ARC " 243 

were plastic to such impressions. Possibly he arrived 
on this earth much as an aerolite arrives, drawn out 
of his own orbit by the superior attraction of this 
globe. 

" The Great God Pan " was, what might be termed, 
the forerunner of the devil's reincarnation. The belief 
in a personal devil was rapidly dying out amongst us, 
in spite of " The Sorrows of Satan," and the belief in 
" The Prince of this World " so insisted upon through- 
out the Old and New Testaments. 

There is no more engrossing subject for the occultist 
to indulge in than gathering together every verse in 
the Bible dealing with " The Evil One," and trying, 
with the aid of ancient traditions, to piece a coherent 
story together. When one gets a certain distance in 
the study one comes to the conclusion that there is a 
great deal more in it than meets the eye. It is a vast 
subject, and I think the most profoundly occult 
mystery extant and undeciphered. 

The devil now occupies a prominent position in 
the collective thought of the nation. An enormous 
number of people believe now in his existence, who 
would have scorned the bare idea before 191 6. It 
was in that year that he began to loom large in the 
beliefs of quite materially minded people, and his 
advent into actual, active existence at once complicated 
matters terribly. 

Said a well-known writer to me, " I think there is 
something in it. It's very tiresome. I was just 
beginning to settle down in my beliefs, now I'm all 
upset again by this conception of a personal adversary 
to the Supreme Ruler." 

In the early weeks of 1917 a new impression drifted 
in on us. 



244 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

Some angel came down and stirred the pool of the 
world, and left with us " The Sacred Heart." 

" The Sacred Heart " was the forerunner of " The 
New Jeanne d'Arc," Claire Ferchaud. 

There is nothing that has more astonished the 
Catholic world than hearing " The Sacred Heart " 
talked of by Protestants, and actually adopted by 
them as a sacred symbol. Hitherto it has been ex- 
clusively a part of Catholic worship. 

There was such a demand for the little metal 
" Sacred Heart" images (a figure of the Christ, vv^ith 
hands outstretched and a flaming heart at His breast), 
that can be carried about in the pocket, that they were 
not to be bought in England, and were hard to procure 
abroad. Enormous numbers had been sent to the 
front by persons belonging to all denominations, who 
treasured one of their own at home. Very suddenly 
" The Sacred Heart " became an object of veneration 
amongst thousands to whom Roman Catholicism was 
anathema. 

Then came the demand from France that " The 
Sacred Heart " should be placed above the tricolor. 

I had not heard of Claire Ferchaud before the 
beginning of 1918, though her Divine Mission began 
about six years previously. 

Occultists began to speak of her amongst them- 
selves as one who would yet save France. This hope 
was never lost sight of in the country's darkest hours. 
Now there is a steadily growing demand amongst the 
educated British public to learn all that can be known 
about this girl who has been called " The New Joan 
of Arc." 

In 19 1 6 she was summoned to appear before an 
Ecclesiastical Commission at Poitiers in the same room 



" THE NEW JEANNE D'ARC " 245 

in which " The Maid of Orleans " was interrogated, 
before being placed at the head of the Army of deliver- 
ance. 

Both Claire Ferchaud and her communications were 
subjected to the strictest scrutiny. The result was 
entirely in her favor. Her writings were examined 
by Father Vaudrious, D.D., M.S.D., who declared 
them inspired, and equal to those of St. Catherine 
of Sienna and St. Teresa. Finally they were taken 
to Rome, and submitted to a commission appointed 
by the Holy See. The result being that she was 
ordered to continue her mission. The writings deal 
with devotion to " The Sacred Heart " and the dignity 
of priesthood. 

One is irresistibly reminded of the opening scenes 
at Lourdes, whilst Bernadette Soubirons was alive, in 
1858. Again, one cannot but recall a certain similarity 
betwixt certain events in the life of the Maid of 
Orleans and the events taking place now in the life of 
Claire Ferchaud. 

Claire is a girl twenty-two years old, the daughter 
of a peasant proprietor in the village of Ranfillieres, a 
mile from Lublande, Deux Sevres Dept., France. Her 
parents are alive, and she has two sisters and three 
brothers. The father and one brother fought during 
the war, another brother was a prisoner, and the 
youngest assists on the farm. One of the sisters works 
on the farm, and the eldest sister is a religieuse at the 
community of La Sagesse. 

Claire was tending her father's flocks when the first 
great revelation came to her nine years ago; then she 
was but thirteen years old. She had crept into a 
thicket to read, and suddenly the Divine Master ap- 
peared to her and bade her lay down her book. He 



246 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

told her she had been chosen for a Divine Mission, 
and that He would guide and instruct her. He showed 
her " The Sacred Heart " covered with wounds. 

On recounting her vision to her priest, she was 
treated with coldness and disbelief, and on her telling 
him two years later that Our Lord daily appeared to 
her in Holy Communion she was treated still more 
coldly. 

Until he himself received a sign he maintained an 
attitude of utter disbelief. What happened soon after 
whilst he was celebrating Holy Mass, entirely con- 
vinced him. 

At that particular part of the Canon when the priest 
divides the Sacred Species he saw blood issue from the 
Sacred Host. Nor was this all. A week afterwards 
he observed Claire Ferchaud in a trance in his own 
church, and he saw her using a handkerchief as if 
wiping some object in front of her, which he could not 
see. Blood stains appeared on the handkerchief, and 
increased as she repeated the action. 

Filled with amazement he sought later for an ex- 
planation, and she told him, 

" Our Lord appeared before me suffering greatly 
because of the terrible sins of the world, and He asked 
me to do for Him what Veronica did on the road to 
Calvary. To wipe away the bloody sweat that trickled 
down His face. I saw the Sacred Heart, riddled with 
wounds, and the deepest wound of all was inflicted by 
France, the eldest daughter of the Church, on whom 
He had lavished so deep a love. Once before He 
appeared to me walking upon ears of corn which He 
crushed to powder." 

The priest after hearing this explanation took the 
handkerchief to the bishop, who listened to the 



" THE NEW JEANNE D'ARC " 247 

wonderful story with sympathetic attention. He ex- 
amined the blood-stained handkerchief minutely, and 
sent for a nun. " If," he said, " the stains are what 
they are represented to be they cannot be washed 
out." 

The bishop put the matter to the test, and watched 
the nun endeavoring to remove the stains. It was 
all in vain, and the bishop standing by his own test 
declared the mission of Claire Ferchaud to be Divine. 

Every night, between eleven and twelve o'clock, 
Claire beholds apparitions, and receives the sacred 
teaching that was promised, and it was in 1916 that 
she was ordered to Poitiers to undergo cross-examina- 
tion. 

Unfortunately the further development of Claire 
Ferchaud's mission cannot yet be communicated to 
the world, but in time it will be, and very startling and 
wonderful it will seem. 

Meanwhile she encountered very strong opposition. 
With considerable difficulty the Deputy of Vendee 
arranged a meeting between Claire and M. Poincare. 
Claire implored him to permit the emblem of the 
Sacred Heart to be placed on the Standards of France, 
as the one condition of success. Unfortunately M. 
Poincare had to refuse, owing to political reasons, 
though as proof of her mission she disclosed an inci- 
dent only known to him which happened after the 
victory of the Marne. 

The same adverse influence operated at her inter- 
view with M. Clemenceau. This appointment was 
arranged by the Archbishop of Rheims, Cardinal 
Lucon. The Archbishop implored M. Clemenceau to 
fix a day of public intercession for France. This also 
the Prime Minister of France had reluctantly to refuse. 



248 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

It is openly stated that before the later French 
successes the emblem of the Sacred Heart was secretly 
sewn upon the flags of France, and it is also affirmed 
that General Foch is a devoted lover of the Sacred 
Heart, and bears its emblem with him wherever he 
goes. 

Great changes have come about in the village where 
Claire Ferchaud dwells. Formerly a sleepy, neglected 
little place, it is now converted into a scene of the 
greatest activity. 

From all parts of France the pilgrims come — some 
on foot, having walked many miles, some in motors and 
horse-driven vehicles. Hundreds of soldiers find their 
way there, and it is estimated that from fifteen to 
twenty thousand people pass through Lublande in a 
month. 

With the consent of her bishop, Claire Ferchaud 
has formed a small community of nine, and is now 
established in a temporary convent adjacent to her 
parish church at Lublande. It is believed that her 
Divine Mission will be accomplished in 1922, and that 
she will then be released from earthly life. 

Claire has predicted a stormy period for France 
after peace has been signed. According to her 
prophecy there will be violent unrest until rulers arise 
who possess firm religious convictions. At the 
beginning of the war she affirmed that the French 
Army would never prosper until the troops were com- 
manded by a true son of the Church. This affirma- 
tion she claimed to receive from a Divine source. 
When Marechal Foch took over the supreme command 
■she was satisfied that victory, so far as the French 
arms were concerned, was assured. 

As all the world knows, and as all may learn who 



"THE NEW JEANNE D'ARC" 249 

read Hyndman's life of his old friend Clemenceau, the 
Prime Minister of France, like the majority of his 
colleagues, is frankly atheistical. Claire Ferchaud 
claims to have received the Divine intimation that until 
this condition of mind is superseded by a public 
acknowledgment of a supreme divine power, a supreme 
arbiter over the destinies of the world, the affairs of 
France can never prosper. She predicts that in 1922 
rulers will arise who will bow before a Power superior 
to their own human energies. 

The first part of her prophecy has come true. A 
man of God won his way to the front, and saved 
France and the Allies at the darkest hour of their 
tribulation. 

The supreme command was vested in a man of pro- 
found religious convictions, who carried his beliefs and 
observances openly into the arena of war. 

I translate the words written lately to me by one 
who has served under Ferdinand Foch. They throw 
a brilliant light upon a great soul. 

" I can see him now, alone and unattended, at an 
hour when the Church of Cassel was deserted, praying 
and seeking comfort in the great sorrow, of which he 
never spoke. He had lost his only son, and one of his 
daughters was widowed. In spite of his indomitable 
energy there was about him an air of profound melan- 
choly and sadness. 

" At certain moments his eyes seemed to say, * I 
approach the twilight of my life in the consciousness 
of being a good servant who will repose in the peace 
of God. My faith in life eternal, in a good God, has 
sustained me in my hardest hours. Prayer has 
illumined my soul. See to it, you young men of 
France, who are without a great ideal, without any 



250 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

conception of the spiritual side of life, there can be 
nothing for you but discouragement and feebleness. 
We demand of you great sacrifices to the end. Accept 
those sacrifices as I accept mine, who believe that spirit 
must prevail over matter.' " 



CHAPTER XX 

HAUNTED HOUSES " CASTEL A MARE " 

I HAVE never yet met any one who was not 
interested in haunted houses. Even the most 
blatant skeptic always wants to " hear all 
about it," though he has predetermined to treat the 
story with his habitual scoffing incredulity. Of all 
the departments of psychical research none commands 
more general interest than a " spooky " house, and 
there are few people who cannot name a dwelling which 
has acquired the reputation for being haunted by 
denizens of the other world. 

Of course, any house that falls into serious disrepair, 
and remains unoccupied for some long period, any 
dwelling whose owner permits decay to proceed un- 
checked, and dilapidation to run its course, at once 
suggests the thought to the beholder, " what a haunted 
looking old place," and rumor, in such cases, quickly 
supplies all the old phenomena, even though tradition 
be totally absent. Tramps are always on the 
lookout for such shelters, and their damped-down 
fires catch the eye of some scared rustic who happens 
to be passing in the dark. Rats and the winds of 
heaven play hide-and-seek through the deserted rooms 
and corridors, and ow4s find sanctuary in the surround- 
ing gardens. Their cries, varying from the exultant 
shriek to the mournful wail, add a weird suggestiveness 
to the abiding melancholy of such abandoned habita- 
tions. 

251 



252 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

There is so much talk nowadays of hauntings and 
ghosts, that it seems strange we should know so 
very little about them. I have never heard a really 
convincing explanation of why ghosts should haunt 
certain houses, and I have no explanation of my own 
to offer. If ghosts could be commanded, if one could 
be sure of witnessing certain phenomena that have 
been elaborately described to one, then there might 
be the ghost of a chance of advantageous investigation. 
No such opportunities seem to be afforded the in- 
vestigator. He may watch for months and see noth- 
ing, yet the elusive wraith may turn up before several 
witnesses on the very night after he has abandoned 
his quest out of sheer boredom and discouragement. 

Some seven years ago, whilst wintering in Torquay, 
I heard a great deal of gossip about a villa on the War- 
berries, which was reputed to be badly haunted. For 
the last forty to fifty years nobody, it was said, had 
been able to live in it for any length of time. Several 
people asserted that they had heard screams coming 
from it as they passed along the high road, and no 
occupant had ever been able to keep a door shut or 
even locked. 

The house is at present being pulled down, therefore 
I commit no indiscretion in describing the phenomena 
connected with it. 

" Castel a Mare " is situated in what house agents 
would describe as " a highly residential quarter." It 
is surrounded by numerous villas, inhabited by people 
who are all very " well to do," and who make Torquay 
their permanent home. The majority of these villas 
lie right back from the road, and are hidden in their 



HAUNTED HOUSES 253 

own luxuriant gardens, but the haunted house is one 
of several whose back premises open straight on to 
the road. 

No dwelling could have looked more commonplace 
or uninteresting. It was built in the form of a high 
box, three storied. It was hideous and inartistic in 
the extreme, but along its frontage looking towards 
the sea and hidden from the road, there ran a wide 
balcony on to which the second floor rooms opened, 
and from there the view over the garden was charm- 
ing. When I first went to look at it, dilapidation had 
set in. Jackdaws and starlings were busy in the 
chimneys, the paint was peeling off the walls, and most 
of the windows were broken. Year after year those 
windows were mended, but they never remained intact 
for more than a week, and during the war there has 
been no attempt at renewal. Even the agents' boards, 
" To be let or sold " dropped one by one from their 
stems, as if in sheer weariness of so fruitless an an- 
nouncement. 

It was not long before I obtained the loan of the 
keys, and proceeded to " take the atmosphere." It was 
decidedly unhealthful, I concluded, though I neither 
heard nor saw anything unusual during the hour I spent 
alone in quietly wandering through the deserted rooms. 
I found no trace of tramps, and all the closed 
windows were thickly cobwebbed inside, an important 
fact to notice in psychic research. I fixed upon 
the bathroom and one other small room, as the foci 
of the trouble, and left the house with no other 
strong impression than that my movements had been 
closely watched, by some one unseen by me. It was 
no uncommon sight in pre-war days to see several 



254 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

smart motor cars drawn up at the gate. Frivolous 
parties of explorers in search of a thrill drove 
in from the surrounding neighborhood, and romped 
gayly through the house and out again, and I discovered 
that several of those visitors had distinctly felt that 
they were being followed about and watched. 

My husband and I were naturally much interested 
in this haunted dwelling, so accessible, and so near 
to our own house. We determined that if we could 
make friends with the owner we would do a little 
investigation on our own. Numerous people, on the 
plea that the house might suit them as a residence, 
got the loan of the keys, and spent an hour or two 
inside the place, wandering about the house and 
garden, but the owner was getting tired of this rush 
of spurious house-hunters. He was beginning to ask 
for bona fides, so we determined honestly to state our 
purpose. 

The proprietor was an old builder who owned 
several other houses. He received me very civilly, 
even gratefully. He would willingly give us the keys 
for as long a period as we required them. " Castel a 
Mare " brought him extreme bad luck ; he longed to be 
rid of it, and he added that after our investigations, if 
my husband could give the house a clean bill of health 
it would be of enormous benejfit to him, in enabling 
him to let or sell it. He did not seem very hopeful, 
but stated it to be his opinion that the hauntings were 
all nonsense, and that the screams people heard were 
the cries of some peacocks that lived in a property 
not far off. This sounded very reasonable, and I 
promised him that if we could honestly state that the 
house was perfectly unhealthful, we would permit our 
conclusions to be made public. 



HAUNTED HOUSES 255 

My husband and I decided that the hour one p. m. 
till two p. m. would be the quietest and least conspicu- 
ous time in which to investigate. Doubtless the night 
would have been better still, but it would have created 
too much excitement in the neighborhood, and callers 
to see " how we were bearing up " would have defeated 
our object. Between one and two all Torquay would 
be lunching, and we could easily slip in unobserved, 
and we would require neither lights nor warm com- 
forts. 

We started at once, my husband keeping the keys, 
and making himself responsible for the doors. 
Though the window-panes were badly broken there 
were no openings large enough to admit a small child, 
and, as I have said, the network of cobwebs within 
was evidence that no human being entered the house by 
the windows. The front door lock was in good order, 
and so were most of the other locks in the house. We 
shut ourselves in, and after a thorough examination of 
the premises we mounted to the first floor. Three 
rooms opened on to it, belonging to the principal bed- 
room — a smaller room and a bathroom opening out 
of the big bedroom. My husband closed all the doors, 
and we sat down on the lower steps of the bare stair- 
case leading to the floor above. That day we drew 
an absolute blank, and at two o'clock we closed every 
door in the house, and just inside the front door we 
made a careless looking arrangement of twigs, dead 
leaves, pieces of straw and dust, which could not fail 
to betray the passing of human feet, should anybody 
possess a duplicate key to the front door and enter by 
that means. 

The second day we found our twig and straw ar- 
rangements intact, but not a single door was shut. 



256 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

all were thrown defiantly wide. This seemed rather 
promising and we went upstairs to our seat on the 
steps, and carefully reclosing the doors immediately 
in front of us, sat down to await events. 

Quite half an hour must have passed when suddenly 
a click made us both look up. The handle of the door, 
but a couple of yards distant from me, leading into the 
small room, was turning, and the door quietly opened 
wide enough to admit the passing of a human being. 
It was a bright sunny day, and one could see the brass 
knob turning round quite distinctly. We saw no form 
of any sort, and the door remained half open. For 
perhaps a couple of moments we awaited developments, 
then our attention was suddenly switched ofif the door 
by the sound of hurrying footsteps running along the 
bare boards on the corridor above us. My husband 
rushed up and searched each empty room, but neither 
saw anything nor heard anything more. Before 
leaving the house we shut all doors, and locked all 
that would lock. Such was the meager extent of our 
second day's investigations. 

On the third day the doors were all found wide 
flung. No door opened before our eyes as on our 
former visit, but a brushing sound was heard ascending 
the stairs, as if from some one pressing close against 
the wall. 

For about a fortnight nothing happened beyond what 
I have recounted, but I was strongly conscious that 
we were being watched. The most unhealthful spots 
were the bathroom, a servants' room entered by a 
staircase leading from the kitchen, and the stable, a 
small building immediately to the right of the house. 
The bathroom was in great disrepair, long strips of 
paper hung from the walls, and an air of profound 



HAUNTED HOUSES 257 

depression pervaded it. Obviously it had once been 
merely a large cupboard, and it had a window ad- 
mitting light from a passage behind it. 

We had never once failed to find every door which 
we had closed thrown wide on our return, and one 
day we locked the bathroom, and removing the key 
we looked about for some spot in which to secrete it. 
On that floor was nothing large enough to hide even 
so small an object as a key, so we took it downstairs 
to the dining-room. In a corner lay a rag of linoleum 
about six inches square, under this we placed the bath- 
room key and left the house. 

That afternoon a house agent called and asked for 
the loan of the keys. He told us that a brave widow, 
who knew the history of the house, thought it might 
suit her to live in, and he proposed to take her 
over it and point out its charms. He would return 
the keys to us directly afterwards. I took advantage 
of this occasion to say to the agent that probably the 
screams some people had heard proceeded from the 
peacocks in the neighborhood. 

He shook his head and answered, " We hoped that 
might prove to be the case, but we have ascertained 
that it is not so." He seemed despondent about the 
place, even though what we had to tell him was as yet 
nothing very formidable or exciting. What we did 
not tell him was that we had locked up the bathroom, 
and hidden the key. We left him to discover that fact 
for himself. 

He returned with the keys in about an hour, and 
I asked him what the widow thought of " Castel a 
Mare." 

" She thinks something might be made of it. The 
cheapness attracts her," he answered. 



258 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

" But it will need so much doing to it," I demurred. 
"What did she think of the bathroom?" 

" She said it only needed cleaning and repapering. 
The bath itself she found in good enough condition." 

So the bathroom door was open, in spite of our 
having locked it and hidden the key ! 

After the agent had gone we went to the house. 
Every door stood wide. The bathroom key was still 
in its hiding-place, and the door open. We replaced 
the key. The ghosts laughed to scorn such securities 
as locks and keys. 

For a month or two we pursued our investigations, 
then we returned the keys to the owner. Though we 
had seen and heard so little it was impossible to give 
the house a clean bill of health, and the old builder 
was much cast down. A few days afterwards we 
received a letter from him offering us the house as a 
free gift. It would pay him to be rid of the ground 
rent, and the place was as useless to him as to any one 
else. We thanked him and refused the gift. 

About this period I was lucky enough to get into 
touch with a former tenant of " Castel a Mare," and 
this lady most kindly gave me many details of her 
residence there. About thirty years ago she occupied 
it with her father and mother, and they were the last 
family to live in it for any length of time, and for 
many years it has remained empty. 

Soon after their arrival this family discovered that 
there was something very much amiss with their new 
residence. The house, the garden, and the stable were 
decidedly uncanny, but it was some time before they 
would admit, even to themselves, that the strange hap- 
penings were of a supernatural order. 

The phenomena fell under three headings : a piercing 



HAUNTED HOUSES 259 

scream heard continually, at any hour and during all 
seasons; continuous steps running along corridors, 
and up and down stairs; constant lockings of doors 
by unseen hands. 

The scream was decidedly the most unnerving of 
the various phenomena. The family lived in constant 
dread of it. Sometimes it came from the garden, 
sometimes from inside the house. One morning whilst 
they sat at breakfast, they were violently startled by 
this horrible sound coming from the inner hall, just 
outside the room in which they sat. It took but a 
moment to throw open the door, but, as usual, there 
was nothing to be seen. 

On another occasion the family doctor had just 
arrived at the front door, and was about to ring, when 
he was startled by the scream coming from inside the 
house. This doctor still lives in the neighborhood, 
and is one of many people who can bear witness to 
the fact. 

The footsteps of unseen people kept the family 
pretty busy. They were always running to the doors 
to see who was hurrying past, and up and down stairs. 
Very soon the drawing-room became extremely un- 
comfortable, and practically uninhabitable. It was 
always full of unseen people moving about. The lady 
of the house never felt herself alone, and when she 
found herself locked into her own room, the behavior 
of her astral guests seemed to her to have become 
intolerable. The master of the house no more escaped 
these attentions than did the rest of the inhabitants, 
and finally all keys had to be removed from all doors. 

One night some guests, after getting into bed, heard 
some one open the door of their room and enter. 
Astonishment kept them silent, and in a minute or 



26o GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

two their visitor quietly withdrew and closed the door 
again. They concluded that it must have been their 
hostess, and that thinking they were asleep she had not 
spoken, yet still they thought the incident very strange. 
The next morning they discovered that no member of 
the household had entered their room. 

On another occasion a lady who had come to help 
nurse a sick sister saw, one night, a strange woman 
dressed in black velvet walk downstairs. 

Animals fared badly at " Castel a Mare." A large 
dog belonging to the family was often found cowering 
and growling in abject fear of something visible to it, 
but not to the human inhabitants, and the harness 
horse showed such an invincible objection to its stable, 
that it could only be got in by backing. 

Later on I was told that a member of the Psychical 
Society had visited " Castel a Mare," and had pro- 
nounced the garden to be more haunted than the house. 

It is interesting to note how absolutely untenable 
badly haunted houses become. No matter how 
skeptical, how resolutely material the tenants may be, 
the phenomena wear them down to a humble surrender 
at last. After all, what can people do but quit a resi- 
dence which is constantly showing incontrovertible 
evidence that it is possessed by numerous unseen en- 
tities that defy analysis ? 

Every one is interested in getting rid of this weird 
disturbance, but how to do it? The skeptic is resolute 
in unmasking the fraud, but finds himself balked by 
intangibility. He hears the scream at his door, and 
rushes to arrest the miscreant, but sees no one to 
grapple with. Domestic difficulties become acute. 
No warning is given, no wages asked. The servants 
decamp, too scared to care for anything but putting 



HAUNTED HOUSES 261 

distance between themselves and the nameless dread. 
Visitors begin to fight shy of the house. They have 
heard the screams. 

Month after month the master of the house, thinking 
of his rent, and his reputation for sanity, and what the 
loss of both would mean to him, clings to skepticism as 
his only hope and refuge. He is not going to be driven 
forth by any such stuff and nonsense as ghosts ! Why ! 
there are no such things ! "Seen things ? heard 
things? " Well, yes, he has, but, of course, there must 
be some rational explanation, A man who has fought 
for king and country is not going to be defeated and 
put to flight by a pack of silly women's stories. He 
will soon get to the bottom of the whole affair, then 
woe betide the practical joker! 

When alone he racks his brains in vain. He is 
furious with himself for having heard the scream, and 
tells himself he must be " going dotty." He is puzzled, 
baffled, irritated, but more determined than ever to 
"stick it out." Who can the "joker" be who is 
demoralizing his household, who has even dared to 
lock him into his own room? He thinks of his wife 
and family, and of their shattered nerves; he thinks 
of his terrified servants, and of his dog, which can no 
longer be persuaded to enter the house. He feels he 
must look elsewhere for the disturber of his peace. 
But where? He keeps careful watch unknown (as 
he thinks) to his family. The steps approach him, 
pass close to him, then die away in the distance, leaving 
him fuming, impotent. He finds it necessary to wipe 
his brow, which enrages him still more. At dead of 
night he watches on the staircase, with all lights full 
on. 

Silence, utter silence! Absolutely nothing to be 



262 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

seen or heard. He thinks of going to bed. He always 
said the whole thing was " tommy rot." The deathly 
silence is suddenly rent by a piercing scream at his 
very elbow, and he leaps to his feet, growling out an 
oath below his breath. He looks wildly round on 
every side of him. Nothing! Something strange is 
happening to his head. He passes his hand over his 
hair. It seems to be creeping along his scalp, and he 
thinks of the quills of a porcupine. " What the devil 
is he to do?" "Go to bed," answers inclination, 
" you're doing no good here. Yes ! Go to bed ; that's 
the sensible thing to do." 

The next morning every one asks him if he heard 
"it." He acknowledges to himself that his temper is 
becoming vile. 

The day comes when he is left alone with his family. 
The stafT has fled and he feels rather broken. 

At last he gives in, and agrees to seek another home, 
but it is not to the ghosts he gives in, but to the nervous 
fancies of a pack of silly women. He feels wonder- 
fully light-hearted, however, now that his mind is made 
up, and a glow of magnanimity pervades him. "If 
you do a thing at all do it well and at once," he tells 
himself, and promptly hires another house in another 
neighborhood. 

When questioned by his men friends he laughs. 
The man in the street might understand certain things 
that he could tell, but the man in the club, never! 
*' All tommy rot, my dear chap, but my wife got nerv- 
ous, and the servants! You know what they are. 
Scared by the scratch of a mouse. For the women's 
sake I thought it best to quit. You know what women 
are, when they once get an idea into their heads ! " 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE SEQUEL 

IN 1917 a friend rang me up and asked me if I 
would form one of a party of investigation at 
" Castel a Mare." The services of a medium had 
been secured, and a soldier on leave, who was deeply 
immersed in psychic research, was in high hopes of 
getting some genuine results. 

I accepted the invitation because a certain incident 
had once more roused my curiosity in the haunted 
house. 

During our investigations I had been disappointed 
at not hearing the much-talked-of scream, the more 
so after learning from the former tenants how very 
often they had heard it. When I did at last hear it 
I was walking past the house on a very hot summer 
morning, about eleven o'clock, I was not thinking 
of the house, and had just passed it on my way home, 
when a piercing scream arrested my attention. I 
wheeled round instantly; there was not a doubt as to 
where the scream came from, but unfortunately, 
though there were people on the road, there was no 
one near enough to bear witness. The scream appeared 
to come from some one in abject terror, and would 
have arrested the attention of any one who happened 
to be passing. I mean that had no haunted house 
stood there, had the scream proceeded from any other 
villa, I am sure that any passer-by would have halted 
wonderingly, and awaited further developments. 

263 



264 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

" Castel a Mare " lay in absolute silence, under the 
blazing sunshine, and in a minute or two I walked on. 
I could now understand what it must have meant to 
live in that house, in constant dread of that weird and 
hideous sound resounding through the rooms or gar- 
den. 

This incident made me eager to join my friend's 
party, and on reaching the house I found a small crowd 
assembled. 

The medium, myself, and four other women. The 
soldier, and an elderly and burly builder belonging to 
the neighborhood, who was interested in psychic re- 
search. Eight persons in all. 

As there was no chair or furniture of any description 
in the house, we carried in a small empty box from a 
rubbish heap outside, and followed the medium through 
the rooms. She elected to remain in the large bed- 
room, on the first floor, out of which opened the 
bathroom, and she sat down on the box and leaned 
her back against the wall, whilst we lounged about 
the room and awaited events. It was a sunny sum- 
mer afternoon, and the many broken panes of glass 
throughout the house admitted plenty of air. 

After some minutes it was plain to see that the 
medium had fallen into a trance. Her eyes were 
closed, and she lay back as if in sound sleep. Time 
passed, nothing happened, we were all rather silent, 
as I had warned the party that though we were in a 
room at the side of the house farthest from the road, 
our voices could plainly be heard by passers-by, and 
we wanted no interference. 

Just as we were all beginning to feel rather bored 
and tired of standing, the medium sprang to her feet 
with surprising agility, pouring out a volume of violent 



THE SEQUEL 265 

language. Her voice had taken on the deep growling 
tones of an infuriated man. who advanced menac- 
ingly towards those of us who were nearest to him. 
In harsh, threatening voice he demanded to know what 
right we had to intrude on his privacy. 

There was a general scattering of the scared party 
before this unlooked-for attack, and the soldier gave 
it as his opinion that the medium was now controlled 
by the spirit of a very violent male entity. I had no 
doubt upon the point. 

Then commenced so very unpleasant a scene that 
I had no doubt also of the medium's genuineness. No 
charlatan, dependent upon fraudulent mediumship for 
her daily bread, would have made herself so in- 
tensely obnoxious as did this frail little woman. I 
found myself saying, " Never again. This isn't good 
enough." 

The entity that controlled her possessed superhu- 
man strength. His voice was like the bellow of a bull, 
as he told us to be gone, or he would throw us out 
himself, and his language was shocking. 

I had warned the medium on entering the house 
that we must be as quiet as possible, or we would have 
the police walking in on us. Now I expected any 
moment to see a policeman, or some male stranger 
arrive on the scene, and demand to know what was 
the matter. 

The majority of our party were keeping at a safe 
distance, but suddenly the control rushed full tilt at 
the soldier, who had stood his ground, and attacking 
him with a tigerish fury drew blood at once. The big 
builder and I rushed forward to his aid. The rest of 
the party forsook us and fled, pell-mell, out of the house 
and into the garden. Glancing through a window, 



266 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

near which we fought, I saw below a row of scared 
faces staring up in awed wonder. 

The scene being enacted was really amazing. This 
frail little creature threw us off like feathers, and 
drove us foot by foot before her, always heading us 
off the bathroom. We tried to stand our ground, and 
dodge her furious lunges, but she was too much for us. 
After a desperate scuffle, which lasted quite seven or 
eight minutes, and resulted in much torn clothing, 
she drove us out of the room and on to the landing. 
Then suddenly, without warning, the entity seemed to 
evacuate the body he had controlled, and the medium 
went down with a crash and lay at our feet, just a 
little crumpled disheveled heap. 

For some considerable time I thought that she was 
dead. Her lips were blue, and I could feel no pulse. 
We had neither water nor brandy with which to revive 
her, and we decided to carry her down into the gar- 
den and see what fresh air would do. Though villas 
stood all round us, the foliage of the trees gave us 
absolute privacy, and we laid her flat on the lawn. 
There, after about ten minutes, she gradually regained 
her consciousness, and seemingly none the worse for 
her experiences she sat up and asked what had hap- 
pened. 

We did not give her the truth in its entirety, and 
contrived to account for the blood-stained soldier and 
the torn clothing, without unduly shocking and dis- 
tressing her. We then dispersed; the medium walk- 
ing off as if nothing whatever had occurred to deplete 
her strength. 

Some days after this the soldier begged for another 
experiment with the medium. He had no doubts as 
to her genuineness, and he was sure that if we tried 



THE SEQUEL 267 

again we would get further developments. She was 
willing to try again, and so was the builder, but with 
one exception the rest of the party refused to have 
anything more to do with the unpleasant affair, and 
the one exception stipulated to remain in the garden. 
She very wisely remarked that if she came into the 
house there was no knowing what entity might not 
attach itself to her, and return home with her, and she 
was not going to risk it. Of course this real danger 
always had to be counted upon in such investigations, 
but as the men of the party desired a woman to accom- 
pany the medium, I consented, and we entered the 
house once more, a reduced party of four. 

After the medium had remained entranced for some 
minutes, the same male entity again controlled her. 
The same violence, the same attacks began once more, 
but this time we were better prepared to defend our- 
selves. The soldier and the stalwart builder warded 
off the attacks, and tried conciliatory expostulations, 
but all to no purpose. Then the soldier, who seemed 
to have considerable experience in such matters, tried 
a system of exorcising, sternly bidding the malignant 
entity depart. There ensued a very curious spiritual 
conflict between the exorcist and the entity, in which 
sometimes it seemed as if one, then the other, was 
about to triumph. 

Those wavering moments were useful in giving us 
breathing space from the assaults, and at length hav- 
ing failed, as we desired, to get into the bathroom, 
we drove him back against the wall at the far end of 
the room. Finally the exorcist triumphed, and the 
medium collapsed on the floor, as the strength of the 
control left her. 

For a few moments we allowed the crumpled up 



268 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

little heap to remain where she lay, whilst we mopped 
our brows and regained our breath. The soldier had 
brought a flask of brandy which we proposed to ad- 
minister to the unconscious medium, but quite sud- 
denly a new development began. 

She raised her head, and still crouching on the floor 
with closed eyes she began to cry bitterly. Wailing, 
and moaning, and uttering inarticulate words, she had 
become the picture of absolute woe. 

" Another entity has got hold of her," announced 
the soldier. It certainly appeared to be so. 

All signs of violence had gone. The medium had 
become a heart-broken woman. 

We raised her to her feet, her condition was pitiable, 
but her words became more coherent. 

" Poor master ! On the bed. Help him ! Help 
him ! " she moaned, and pointed to one side of the 
room. Again and again she indicated, by clenching 
her hands on her throat, that death by strangulation 
was the culmination of some terrible tragedy that had 
been enacted in that room. 

She wandered, in a desolate manner, about the floor, 
wringing her hands, the tears pouring down her cheeks, 
whilst she pointed to the bed, then towards the bath- 
room with shuddering horror. 

Suddenly we were startled out of our compassionate 
sympathy by a piercing scream, and my thoughts flew 
instantly to the experiences of the former tenants, and 
what I myself had heard in passing on that June morn- 
ing of the former year. 

The medium had turned at bay, and began a frantic 
encounter with some entity unseen by us. Wildly she 
wrestled and fought, as if for her life, whilst she 
emitted piercing shrieks for " help." We rushed to 



THE SEQUEL 269 

the rescue, dragging her away from her invisible as- 
sailant, but a disembodied fighter has a considerable 
pull over a fighter in the flesh, who possesses some- 
thing tangible that can be seized. I placed the me- 
dium behind me, with her back to the wall, but though 
I pressed her close she continued to fight, and I had 
to defend myself as well as defend her. Her as- 
sailant was undoubtedly the first terrible entity which 
had controlled her. At intervals she gasped out, " Ter- 
rible doctor — will kill me — he's killed master — help ! 
help!" 

Gradually she ceased to fight. The soldier was ex- 
orcising with all his force, and was gaining power; 
finally he triumphed, inasmuch as he banished the " ter- 
rible doctor." 

The medium was, however, still under the control 
of the broken-hearted entity, and began again to wan- 
der about the room. We extracted from her further 
details. An approximate date of the tragedy. Her 
master's name, that he was mentally deficient when 
the murder took place. She was a maidservant in the 
house, and after witnessing the crime she appeared 
to have shared her master's fate, though by what means 
we could not determine. The doctor was a resident 
physician of foreign origin. 

At last we induced her to enter the bathroom, 
which she seemed to dread, and there she fell to la- 
menting over the dead body of her master, which had 
lain hidden there when the room was used as a large 
cupboard. It was a very painful scene, which was 
ended abruptly by her falling down insensible. 

She had collapsed in an awkward corner, but at 
last we lifted her out, and carried her downstairs to 
the garden. When I tried to revive her with brandy 



270 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

I found that her teeth were tightly clenched, I then 
tried artificial respiration, as I could feel no pulse. 
Gradually she came back to life, quietly, calmly, and 
in total ignorance of what had occurred. The most 
amazing thing was that she showed no signs whatever 
of exhaustion or mental fatigue. We were all dead 
beat, but not so the fragile-looking little medium, 
though externally she looked terribly disheveled and 
draggled. 

This was the last time I set foot in the haunted 
house, which is now being demolished, but I still had 
to experience more of its odd phenomena. 

The date and names the medium had given us were 
later on verified by means of a record of villa resi- 
dents, which for many years had been kept in the town 
of Torquay. 

There is no one left now who has any interest in 
verifying a tragic story supposed to have been enacted 
about fifty years ago. It must be left in the realms 
of psychic research, by which means it was dragged 
to light. Certain it is that no such murder came to 
the knowledge of those who were alive then, and live 
still in Torquay. 

If there is any truth in the story it falls under the 
category of undiscovered crimes. The murderer was 
able somehow to hide his iniquities, and escape sus- 
picion and punishment. I do not know if it is intended 
to build another house on the same site. I hope not, 
for it is very probable that a new residence would 
share the fate of the old. Bricks and mortar are no 
impediment to the free passage of the disembodied, 
and there is no reason why they should not elect to 
manifest for an indefinite period of time. 

There can be no doubt that the scream was an actual 



^ THE SEQUEL 271 

fact. There are so many people living who heard it, 
and are willing to testify to the horror of it. Amongst 
those living people are former tenants, who for long 
bore the nervous strain of its constant recurrence. 

There remains one other weird incident in connec- 
tion with " Castel a Mare " which I will now try to 
describe. 

In the winter of 19 17 I was engaged in war work 
which took me out at night. Like every other coast 
town Torquay was plunged at sunset into deepest 
darkness, save when the moon defied the authorities. 
The road leading from the nearest tramcar to our 
house was not lit at all, and one had to stumble along 
as best one could, even electric torches being forbidden. 

I was returning home one very dark, still night 
about a quarter past ten, and being very tired I was 
walking very slowly. Owing to the inky darkness I 
thought it best to walk in the middle of the road, in 
order to avoid the inequalities in the footpath at each 
garden entrance to the villas. At that hour there was 
no traffic, and not a soul about. 

Suddenly my steps were arrested by a loud knock- 
ing on a window-pane, and I collected my thoughts 
and tried to take my bearings. The sound came from 
the left, where two or three villas stand close to the 
road. All I could distinguish was a denser blot of 
black against the dense surroundings, but by making 
certain calculations I recognized that I stood outside 
" Castel a Mare." The knocking on the pane lasted 
only a moment or two, and was insistent and peremp- 
tory. I jumped to the instant conclusion that some 
one was having " a lark " inside, and was trying to 
" get a rise " out of me. I was too tired to be 
bothered, and moved on again with a strong inclina- 



272 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

tion towards my own warm bed, when the knocking 
rang out more peremptory than ever. It seemed to 
say " Stop ! don't go on. I have something to say 
to you." Involuntarily I stood still again, and wished 
that some human being would pass along the road. I 
really would not have cared who it was, policeman, 
soldier, maidservant. I would have laid hold of them 
and said, "Do you hear that knocking? It comes 
from the haunted house." 

Alas ! no one did come. The night lay like an inky 
pall all about me, silent as the grave, save for that 
commanding order to stop which was rapped upon a 
window-pane whenever I attempted to move on. 

Though the being who thus sought to detain me 
could not possibly distinguish who I was, or whether 
my gender was male or female, he could certainly hear 
my footsteps as I walked, and the cool inconsequence 
of his behavior began to nettle me. I was about to 
move resolutely on when I heard something else. This 
time something really thrilling! 

Peal after peal of light laughter, accompanied by 
flying feet. But such laughter! Thin, high treble 
laughter, right away up and out of the scale, and ap- 
parently proceeding from many persons. Such flying 
feet! racing, pattering, rushing feet, light as those of 
the trained athlete. I stood enthralled with wonder, 
for in the pitch-black darkness of that house surely 
no human feet could avoid disaster. They were rush- 
ing up and down that steep, bare wooden staircase 
that I knew so well, and the laughter and the swift- 
winged feet sounded now from the ground floor, then 
could be clearly traced ascending, till they reached the 
third and last floor. Tearing along the empty cor- 



THE SEQUEL 273 

ridors, they began the breakneck descent again to the 
bottom, a pell-mell, wild rush of demented demons 
chasing each other. That is what it sounded like. 

I must have stood there for quite ten minutes, long- 
ing intensely for some one to share in my experiences, 
but Torquay had gone to bed, and I felt it was time 
for me to do likewise. 

What could I make of the affair ? Nothing ! Rats ? 
Rats don't laugh. Human beings having a rag and 
trying to scare the neighborhood? No human being 
could have run up and down that staircase in such 
profound darkness. It would have been a case of 
crawling up with a firm hand on the banister rail. 

I gave up trying to think and turned resolutely 
away. As I did so the knocking began again upon 
the window-pane. 

"Do stop; oh! don't go away. Stop! stop!" it 
seemed to call after me insistently as I quickened my 
footsteps and gradually outdistanced the imperious de- 
mand. 

What explanation have I to offer? None! The 
hallucinations of a tired woman? That may do for 
the general public, but not for me. You see, I was the 
person who heard it. 

There are many haunted houses that are quite habit- 
able, such as Hampton Court Palace, etc. Where the 
apparition keeps strictly to an anniversary, or where 
the phenomena are mild and inoffensive, their pres- 
ence can be endured with a certain amount of equa- 
nimity. The point really lies in this. Are the ghosts 
who haunt a dwelling indifferent to, or hostile to, the 
presence of their companions in the flesh? If the 
situation is according to the latter, then the ghosts will 



274 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

certainly score. They will rid themselves of the hu- 
man inhabitants by a wearing-down nerve pressure, 
which cannot be fought against with any chance of 
success. If the ghosts are shy or indifferent, wrapped 
up in their own concerns and containing themselves 
in a world of their own, then there is no reason why 
the incarnate and discarnate should not live peacefully 
together. 

To-day, February 27th, 19 19, I read the following 
in the Morning Post : — 

" Haunted or disturbed properties. A lady who has 
deeply studied this subject and possesses unusual 
powers will find out the history of the trouble and 
undertake to remedy it. Houses with persistent bad 
luck can often be freed from the influence. Strictest 
confidence. Social references asked and offered." 

What would our grandparents have thought of this 
means of turning an honest penny? I have no doubt 
the lady " possessing the unusual powers " will be em- 
ployed, and in many cases she will be successful. In 
the majority of cases I venture to say that she will 
fail, simply because the majority of cases are too elu- 
sive to be dealt with by human means. How would 
this lady treat the " Castel a Mare " scream ? How 
would she deal with the next story I am going 
to relate? 

It is a simple matter to compile a book of thrilling 
ghost stories if direct evidence is not given, if names 
of persons and places are suppressed. 

I claim that my stories have a special interest and 
value, because I have tried to restrict them to such as 
can be attested to by living persons, closely related to 
me either by friendship or by family ties. In a very 
few instances I have been obliged for obvious reasons 



THE SEQUEL 275 

to suppress the names of houses and hotels. In these 
cases I am ready personally to supply full information 
to genuine students of the occult, if they are willing to 
approach me privately. 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE HAUNTED LODGE 

A CONSIDERABLE number of people are 
alive who can testify to the truth of the 
facts I now narrate. I regret that I have 
not been able to investigate this case personally, but 
I hope to do so before very long. 

In the spring of 1901, my sister and her husband, 
Major Stewart, rented an old shooting lodge in Argyll- 
shire. The place was charmingly situated, the shoot- 
ing and fishing excellent, and the scenery around was 
noted for its romantic beauty. 

Though the main portion of the house was old, a 
new wing had been added for the sleeping accommoda- 
tion of servants, and this arrangement shut them off 
at night from the ancient part of the dwelling. The 
original kitchen still remained in use. 

The servants had been sent on in advance to pre- 
pare the lodge, and when Major and Mrs. Stewart 
arrived they were at once confronted with the informa- 
tion that the place bore a very evil reputation. The 
villagers had not hesitated to prime the maids with 
all sorts of creep}'- stories, eminently calculated to 
cause their precipitate departure. Luckily for the 
master and mistress the maids had been with them 
for some years, and were neither of a timid age nor 
disposition, so the household settled comfortably down, 
in those long spring and summer days, which in the 
north means practically no darkness. 

276 



THE HAUNTED LODGE 277 

My sister had banished the alleged hauntings from 
her mind, and probably the maids had done likewise, 
for all was going quietly and well, when suddenly, after 
a week's residence, there came a rude reminder. 

Major and Mrs. Stewart were both awakened one 
night by unmistakable sounds of very noisy burglars, 
who appeared to have broken into the house through 
the kitchen quarters. The major lit a candle, and 
looked at his watch. It was just on midnight. What 
puzzled them both was the noise the intruders made. 
Burglars naturally tread softly and stealthily, but 
these men stamped about in heavy boots, and were 
engaged in throwing about heavy articles. There 
seemed to be quite a number of accomplices involved 
in the enterprise, and they displayed an amazing in- 
difference to detection. 

My sister and her husband decided that events could 
not be left to take their course. This matter must be 
looked into. The major armed himself with a loaded 
revolver. My sister armed herself with a lighted can- 
dle and a box of matches, and together they crept 
softly downstairs on their way to the kitchen. 

AH this time the noises continued. Stamping of 
heavy feet, crashing down of heavy weights, but on 
the way downstairs a first glimmering that the super- 
natural came into this affair began to dawn upon my 
sister. She became aware that an invisible presence 
was following them. 

The noises continued as they cautiously and silently 
crept towards the kitchen. As they reached the door, 
suddenly utter silence fell. Inside nothing was dis- 
arranged. There were no signs of burglars, every- 
thing was as usual. 

Considerably mystified Major and Mrs. Stewart re- 



278 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

turned to bed, and were not disturbed again that night. 

The next day, about four o'clock in the afternoon, 
the same sounds began again. This time the noise 
was easily located in one of the unused bedrooms on 
the top floor of the house. Heavily shod men were 
tramping about the floor overhead, throwing down 
heavy boxes and making a considerable disturbance. 

Major and Mrs. Stewart ascended on tiptoe, and 
when outside the closed door listened intently. There 
was no mistake this time. Nothing could sound more 
human than the activity going on inside that room. 
Half a dozen men at least were in possession of it, and 
those men had to be confronted. Luckily they had 
no means of escape. This time they really would be 
caught. 

After a few minutes of silent listening the major, 
whose hand was on the knob, threw open the door 
and bounded into the room. 

Instant silence — nothing — not even the whisk of 
a defiant rat's tail! 

The husband and wife sat down and stared at one 
another in utter bewilderment. The bright spring 
daylight seemed to mock them as it flooded every chink 
and cranny. 

Shortly after this occurrence three guests came to 
stay, two women and a man. They were given bed- 
rooms on the top floor, but the room whence the 
disturbance had come was left severely alone. The 
household, with one accord, welcomed their advent as 
a pleasant distraction, and it was unanimously agreed 
that they should be kept in absolute ignorance of what 
had taken place. 

The next morning the three guests all had the same 
story to tell, of having had no sleep. Heavily booted 



THE HAUNTED LODGE 279 

men kept passing their doors, and heavy articles were 
flung about in adjacent rooms. They had spent a 
night of terror. No one had possessed sufificient 
courage to look out into the corridor, along which the 
men were passing, and they had kept lights burning 
in their rooms till full daybreak. They refused to 
sleep again upon that floor. 

My sister moved them down to the second floor, on 
which she herself slept, and a thorough investigation 
of the house, outside and inside, was made. No con- 
clusion was come to. 

The noises continued on the following night, but 
being overhead, and more distant, they were more 
endurable. 

A second male guest now arrived, and the assembled 
household waited in breathless interest to see how the 
ghosts would affect him. Nothing whatever was told 
to him, and he was lodged in a bedroom immediately 
underneath the noisy one. 

The next morning, after all had passed a disturbed 
night, it was found that some of the noises had pro- 
ceeded from the new guest. He had carried some of 
his blankets out into the garden and had slept there. 
He remained on, but refused to sleep in the house, 
and a tent was rigged up for him outside. He stated 
that the disturbances were too much for his nerves, 
though he had no idea what they were. His behavior, 
on the first night, in retiring to the garden, was meant 
as a strong protest against such treatment of a tired 
guest. His temper had got the upper hand of him, 
after fruitless efforts to sleep, and, finally, he had 
tramped downstairs with an armful of blankets, antici- 
pating many apologies next morning from host and 
hostess, and a peaceful night to follow. 



28o GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

The following day a new maid arrived. She slept 
in the old part of the house, and shortly afterwards 
asked my sister if the house was haunted, as she had 
been kept awake by " heavy people running past her 
door with naked feet." 

By this time it was only the influence of the staid 
old servants which prevented the younger ones from 
taking flight. My sister and her husband were not 
alarmed, they were profoundly interested. 

The summer passed on, and there were days and 
weeks when nothing was heard, then quite suddenly 
the disturbances would begin again. As the noises 
sounded so very human it was extremely difficult to 
believe that they really did not proceed from incarnate 
beings, and my sister told me that time after time, as 
she listened, she would say to herself, " Now, beyond 
a shadow of doubt there are men in that room." She 
would creep upstairs, listen for some time with her 
hand on the door-knob — then suddenly throw it open 
— to find nothing. She never wearied of trying to 
surprise those invisible men. 

At times when her husband was away from home, 
she would spend the entire night in an obstinate attempt 
to solve the mystery. When she had no guests, and 
the servants were asleep in their new wing, she would 
awake to the noise. Taking her candle she would 
mount on bare, silent feet to the floor above, and listen 
at the door, often for half an hour at a time. She had 
no fear, but intense curiosity. It was easy to trace 
what was going on in the room. Men were packing, 
moving heavy boxes, throwing down heavy articles, 
walking about the floor with ponderous tread. First 
they would be at one end of the room, then move on 
to the other. Sometimes they approached so near the 



THE HAUNTED LODGE 281 

door behind which she stood, that she expected to see 
it open, and to be confronted by several burly ruffians. 
She would rush suddenly in, candle in hand, only to be 
received in sudden, utter silence. Not even the scurry 
of a scared mouse. After half an hour of patient wait- 
ing within the room, she would leave it, close the door, 
and sit down on the staircase. In a few moments the 
disturbance was again in full swing. 

Were I writing an account of these hauntings for 
the Psychical Society I should go into the most minute 
details; suffice it here to say, that during all this time 
every sort of investigation had been carried out by 
practical men and women, who had personally heard 
the disturbances, and who were keenly interested in 
the phenomena. 

Rats were, of course, the first natural suggestion, 
but no one put forth this theory after having once, 
with their own ears, heard the disturbances. No one 
could advance any rational conclusion. The whole 
affair was baffling in the extreme. 

It would have been simple enough to leave the place 
and forfeit the rent, but my sister and her husband 
loved the sport and the beauty of the surroundings, 
and were determined to remain, unless anything worse 
developed. No one ever saw anything unpleasant, or 
even suggestive of the supernatural, and the whole 
household had become more or less indifferent to the 
noises. They brought no harm to anybody, and might 
be safely ignored. 

Mrs. Stewart had four Pomeranian dogs which did 
not produce a calming effect upon their human com- 
panions. They were constantly seeing things, brist- 
ling and showing every sign of terror. Into the noisy 
room they refused to go, and they objected to being left 



282 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

a moment alone. They slept in my sister's bedroom. 

One night she was alone in the old house. Major 
Stewart had gone on business to Edinburgh, and the 
servants had retired to bed in their own wing. Mrs. 
Stewart was sitting in the smoking-room, reading an 
interesting novel by the light of a lamp. A good fire 
burned, and the four Poms were asleep on the hearth- 
rug. The door was slightly ajar, and outside it ran 
a short corridor. 

Suddenly, at its far end a terrible noise arose. A 
very different noise to anything that had been heard 
before, and one so blood-curdling that Mrs. Stewart 
at last knew the meaning of mortal fear. 

Two men were fighting desperately, swaying and 
wrestling, and snarling fiercely like two tigers locked 
in deathly combat. She glanced at the dogs. They 
were sitting up, staring with terrified eyes at the door, 
their bodies quivering, their little fangs showing. 
Then — with a bound — they were off, tearing for 
dear life along the corridor towards the stairs. 

It was a situation that demanded considerable nerve. 
Impossible to sit there alone in the dead of night, 
and listen to that hideous din, but a few yards from 
the door. She must follow the dogs as swiftly as she 
dared. 

She took up the lamp and moved stealthily to the 
door. The corridor was in complete darkness, and in 
that darkness the two men fought desperately, and 
below their breath they raved, groaned, blasphemed, 
incoherently. One long drawn out babel of breath- 
less discord. 

In an overwhelming rush of terror Mrs. Stewart 
made a dash for the stairs, but while still in the cor- 
ridor she heard flying feet approaching her from the 



THE HAUNTED LODGE 283 

end she was trying to reach. She shrank back against 
the wall, the flying feet passed in a wild tempestuous 
rush, and as they did so the lamp was struck violently 
out of her hand, and she was left in complete darkness. 

She reached her bedroom and locked the door, then 
she lighted the candles and looked for the dogs. She 
found them huddled together in abject terror under 
her bed. 

The next day my sister called upon the lady who 
owned the place, and recounting her experiences asked 
to be told the origin of the hauntings. She was told 
the following story : — 

Many years previously a farmer, who was a 
widov^^er, lived in the lodge with an only son, who 
was grown up. The old farmer married again, a 
pretty young girl, and the son fell in love with his 
stepmother. A quarrel ensued, and a desperate con- 
flict, in which the father stabbed his son to death. 

The Stewarts did not leave the haunted lodge till 
some long time after the events I have narrated ; in 
fact, my sister inhabited it after her husband died, 
during a stay in the South of England. 

It is difficult to form any conjecture as to the actual 
cause of the disturbances. How do ghosts contrive 
to make such a noise ? The common answer would be, 
" They were astral noises heard clairaudiently." But 
was every one in the house clairaudient? It is pos- 
sible, but most unlikely. When the noises began every 
one under that roof heard them, and continued to hear 
them till they ceased. 

The lodge is still to let, so perhaps the mystery may 
yet be unraveled. Will a member of the Psychical 
Society not try his luck? The rent is low, the sport, 
of more than one kind, is excellent. 



284 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

In the course of time my widowed sister married 
again, and her second husband has given me a curious 
and gruesome story of an experience which came to 
him whilst he was still a bachelor. I will give it in 
his own words : — 

" About fourteen years ago I retired from the Lon- 
don Stock Exchange, and owing to ill health I was 
advised by my doctor to take a long sea voyage. This 
advice I followed, and much benefited by rest and sea 
air I returned to London, after an absence of nine 
months. 

" Always having lived an active life I could not 
contemplate settling down in utter idleness, and I 
consulted my solicitor on the subject of work. 

" He told me that a client of his had just bought a 
flourishing and well-known mill in North Wales. He 
proposed to run it for a time alone, and then turn it 
into a company or syndicate, as he had not sufficient 
capital of his own to ensure its ultimate success. In 
due time, my solicitor gave me a letter of introduction 
to this man, and I went to stay at his house close to the 
mill, which he had just bought. 

" It was a rambling old place, which in the good 
old days had been a coaching inn. Owing to bad 
management the landlord had failed, and for many 
years it had stood empty and ' to let.' It was a queer 
idea, I thought, to turn a coaching inn into a private 
residence, more especially as I soon heard that it had 
a very evil reputation, 

" Though I made many inquiries in the neighbor- 
hood I could never get anything more definite than 
that there was some evil influence in the house. 
Every one who lived in it came to a bad or violent 
end. I concluded that its proximity to his work 



THE HAUNTED LODGE 285 

caused the mill owner to purchase it, and I thought 
no more of the matter. 

" If I was favorably impressed, my intention was 
to put a certain amount of capital into the concern and 
learn the trade, but after staying for a few days with 
the mill owner, I came to the conclusion that I would 
have nothing to do with so odd a person. 

" He was of medium height and very thin, with 
rather straggling hair turning gray, and a sallow, hol- 
low-cheeked face. He had a curious habit of glanc- 
ing suddenly behind him, as if some one had just 
tapped him on the shoulder, and several other little 
traits bespoke an extreme nervousness of disposi- 
tion. 

" One night I entered a room where he happened 
to be, and discovered him staring at himself in a mir- 
ror. I suppose I exhibited some surprise, for he 
wheeled round on me and cried, ' Well ! how do you 
think I am looking ? ' 

" Had I answered truthfully I should have said, 
* Stark, staring mad.' His face was ghastly pale, and 
his eyes were blazing. I made some careless reply, 
and shortly afterwards left the house to play a game 
of billiards with some acquaintances I had made. 
There I was given some interesting information. The 
mill owner was a declared bankrupt. 

" I returned to the house at ten o'clock, and at 
once retired to bed, without again seeing my unfor- 
tunate host. 

" The next morning I was awakened at half -past 
seven by my hostess knocking at my door, and inquir- 
ing if I had seen anything of her husband. I re- 
plied that I had seen nothing of him, but if she was 
anxious I would dress quickly and have a look round 



286 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

for him. This offer she accepted with gratitude. The 
station was not far distant, and she suggested that he 
might have taken the train to Manchester. Would I 
go and make inquiries? 

" I was soon on the way, and interviewed a porter, 
who informed me he had seen the mill owner about an 
hour ago, not on the platform, but staring at the rails. 
The man had watched him, thinking his behavior 
suspicious, and remembering the evil reputation of 
his dwelling, but after a while he had turned away, 
and was last seen walking rapidly off in the direction 
of his own home. 

" I went back and reported what I had heard, and 
the very anxious wife suggested that I should snatch 
a hasty breakfast and then make inquiries at a farm 
a mile off, which was also their property. This I 
readily consented to do. I was extremely sorry for 
the poor woman, and though she did not make a con- 
fidant of me, I could see she was consumed with 
anxiety. 

" My errand was quite fruitless, nothing was known 
of the master, no one had seen him, and back I went 
to the mill house, feeling by this time that probably 
the wife had every cause for her anxiety. 

" I saw nothing of her when I entered. I looked 
into every room on the ground floor, and was just 
going to ring for a servant, when I fancied I heard a 
faint cry. 

" I went out into the hall and listened intently. 
The voice was calling from somewhere below the 
ground, and I thought at once of the huge cellars I 
had been shown, where once the good old ale had been 
brewed and stored. I ran to the door which led to 
the cellars ; it was open, and then I clearly heard a wo- 



THE HAUNTED LODGE 287 

man's voice crying, * Oh! bring a knife! bring a knife 
quickly ! * 

" I darted back into the dining-room and caught up 
the first knife I could find, a ham carver, then hastened 
to the door and began descending the dark stairs. 

" The cellars were fairly well lighted by two grated 
windows, and a horrible sight met my eyes. There 
stood the wife, bending under the weight of her hus- 
band, who was suspended by a rope round his neck 
from the great beam overhead. One glance at the 
hideously distorted face, the glazed eyes protruding 
from their sockets, the gaping mouth and swollen 
tongue, told me the worst. 

" Hastily I severed the rope, and the wife and her 
dead husband sank to the ground together. 

" There was little to be done. We laid the corpse 
flat on the stone floor, and I persuaded her to leave it 
and come upstairs with me, and wait for the arrival of 
the doctor and police. This she consented to do. 
She was very quiet and composed, a curious apathy 
of indifference possessed her, and I would far rather 
have seen her in floods of natural tears, 

" By evening the house had fallen into a dead silence. 
The doctor had pronounced life to be extinct, and the 
corpse had been carried up to an unused bedroom im- 
mediately over the smoking-room. The police found 
that the mill owner had committed suicide by hanging. 
He had jumped off a stone slab, after having adjusted 
the rope to the beam and his own throat. With the 
exception of an old nurse who was devoted to her 
mistress, the servants all departed in a body, and the 
house was left brooding under a weight of intolerable 
depression. 

" I did not blame the servants. As a matter of 



288 



GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 



fact, there was nothing I would have liked better than 
to quit the mill house there and then, and never set 
foot in it again, but I had the desolate widow to con- 
sider. I could not leave her alone, whilst there was 
still the smallest possibility of my being of use. Added 
to this I had the queerest feeling that she required 
protection, though from what I would have been at a 
loss to say. 

" Another feeling, which I combated violently, 
was a sensation of being mocked and jeered at by 
some unseen entity, I was being urged to get out of 
the house, to recognize my own impotence, to mind 
my own business, and when I metaphorically replied, 
' Get thee behind me, Satan,' I could have sworn I 
heard a sly laugh. 

" Of course I told myself all this was but the result 
of a shock to the nerves, and I was not going to pay 
any attention to it, so despite my intense longing to run 
out of the house I settled down with the daily paper, 
a cigarette, and a novel in the smoking-room, and 
resolutely turned my thoughts away from the tragedy. 

" The widow, and her old nurse, who had promised 
me not to leave her mistress for a moment, had re- 
tired together for the night, so I felt satisfied, so far 
as they were concerned. 

" I suppose I must have dozed off, for I was sud- 
denly roused broad awake by footsteps overhead, in 
the room where the corpse lay. I sat up straight and 
listened intently. Were my nerves playing tricks with 
me ? No ; certainly not. There was no mistaking that 
sound for hallucination. It was perfectly clear and 
distinct. A man was walking about overhead, and 
the only man save myself within these walls had 
hanged himself by the neck until he was dead. There 



THE HAUNTED LODGE 289 

it was — the sound. A man's footsteps pacing slowly 
up and down the floor of the bedroom above, from 
end to end, backwards and forwards. 

" I considered what I had better do. I was sure 
the widow and the old nurse were in the bedroom, quite 
at the other end of the house. Probably they were 
both asleep, I hoped so. What had I better do — 
nothing? Yet this inaction irked me. My curiosity 
was intense. The supernatural had never occupied 
much of my thoughts, but now it began to do so. 
Those steps must proceed from the supernatural. 
There was no other explanation. I was the only live 
man in the house. 

" At last I could stand it no longer. I jumped up 
and proceeded upstairs. The lights had been left to 
me to extinguish; they were still on, and I saw at 
once that the door of the bedroom was open. 

" I entered the room, lit the gas and searched every 
corner. No living thing was present. The dead man 
lay in rigid lines beneath a sheet. I left the room 
again in darkness, and carefully closing the door I 
went softly along to the widow's room, and knocked 
very gently. 

" The old nurse came to the door. She told me 
her mistress was asleep, and that the doctor had given 
her a sleeping draught. Neither of them had left the 
room since they entered it to go to bed, more than an 
hour ago. 

" I went downstairs again and took up the news- 
paper, but almost immediately the footsteps began 
once more overhead, in the room where the dead man 
lay. 

" The sound was soft and stealthy at first, then it 
grew louder. The same footsteps moving about the 



290 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

floor, up and down, up and down. I am not ashamed 
to say that I felt a cold sweat break out all over me. 
I could not stand that sound any longer. I made up 
my mind to go to bed. 

" I removed my shoes and turned out the light. 
As I did so I could have sworn I heard a sly, low laugh 
behind me. I crept upstairs. The door of that hor- 
rible room was again open. With a shaking hand I 
closed it, and hurried to my bedroom, locking the door 
at once. 

" The next day I told my experiences to one of the 
acquaintances I had made, and he volunteered to come 
in and keep me company until the funeral was over. 
I gladly accepted his offer. I did not hear the foot- 
steps again. I conclude because the widow was sitting 
with us on the following nights, and the ghost had no 
desire to terrify her." 



CHAPTER XXIII 

AURAS 

I WAS born with the power to see auras, and I 
had attained to quite a grown-up age before 
I discovered that every one could not see them. 

What is an aura? You will see them glittering 
round the heads of saints, and of The Christ in church 
windows. You will see them painted round the head 
of the Blessed Virgin, round the head of the Infant 
she holds, but, indeed, auras are the property of all, 
however humble and lowly. Nothing that has life, 
be the spark ever so faint, is without its astral counter- 
part, its tenuous surrounding atmosphere. Science 
has demonstrated this. Auras have now been photo- 
graphed. 

Habitual seeing of human auras has made me no 
more or less observant of them than I am of the hu- 
man face. If I am asked by any one to say what her 
aura looks like, I do so to the best of my ability, but 
at that complacent moment it is a very tame affair, 
much like the aura that any one may see surrounding 
a lighted candle. A medley of prismatic hues, no color 
predominating. 

Where auras become really interesting is in a room 
full of people. I look down to the far end of the room 
where a group is seated talking. I cannot hear what 
they are saying, but I can tell at once whether the 
conversation is harmonious or otherwise. 

291 



292 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

Often there will be one member of the group whose 
aura is very disturbed. It will emit flashes of bril- 
liant red as he talks vehemently. The aura of the 
man he is addressing has turned a sulky, leaden gray. 

A woman who is sitting listening has an aura of 
intense boredom. The colors are all there, but they 
have become faded, and the extreme tips droop de- 
jectedly, like so many wilted blades of grass. 

The biggest aura I ever saw was that of the late 
Mr. Sexton, a great orator whom I once heard in the 
House of Commons. Some people have mean, tight 
little auras, others have great spreading haloes of bril- 
liant light. I met with a very unusual aura quite 
lately. 

A young woman, Miss L., came to tea with me, a 
charming, cultured woman, whose profession it is to 
keep a large girls' school. She is much interested in 
occult matters, and we " got upon " the subject of a 
rather wonderful case of spiritualism of which she 
knows the details — the medium being a young girl 
whom I will call " Elsie." 

Whilst I was talking to Miss L. I could not help 
observing something very peculiar in her aura; it was 
all lopsided. In place of being a complete circle 
around her head, it had a huge bulge out to the left. 
I had never before seen an aura like that, and it in- 
terested me greatly. 

Just before leaving she mentioned auras, and asked 
me what hers was like. 

I told her honestly that it was peculiar, lopsided, 
and bulging on one side. 

She laughed and said she knew that, because " Elsie " 
always chaffed her about it, saying, " You wear your 
halo all awry." This was very interesting confirma- 



AURAS 293 

tion of my power to see auras correctly. I don't 
know " Elsie," I don't even know her name, which has 
been kept a secret, but we evidently see Miss L.'s aura 
in exactly the same peculiar form. 

The other day I was sitting reading by the window, 
and as I moved in my chair I caught sight, " with the 
tail of my eye," of something bright at the other end 
of the room. A patch of light about a foot deep, 
and two feet long was coming from behind the edge 
of a tall screen that hid a door. I rose and walked 
out of the room. Behind the screen was a maid, 
whom I had not heard enter the open door. She was 
busy over some quiet work, and it was her aura that 
I had seen, though she herself was hidden from view. 

Once before in my life my attention has been drawn 
to the aura of one whom I could not at the moment 
see in the flesh. 

I happened to be passing a glove shop in the south 
of France, and as I strolled slowly past the door a 
blaze of yellow gold inside the shop caught my eye, 
and attracted my attention. I paused at once and 
looked through the open door. This great golden aura 
belonged to the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, who was 
standing at the counter. Her back was turned towards 
me, and I stood for a minute watching this aura of 
a woman whose restless imagination, and passionate 
love for the bitter wine of liberty, brought her finally 
to an absolutely fitting death. I believe she would 
have chosen this death before all others, for at heart 
she was a born anarchist. She fell painlessly by the 
dagger of anarchism. 

One effect of being able to see auras is that they fix 
certain incidents firmly in the mind. I remember one 
such incident very clearly. I was staying at Ha- 



294 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

warden with the Gladstones whilst the Irish troubles 
of '82 were at their height. One afternoon we were 
all assembled on the lawn having tea; Mr. Gladstone 
was standing rather apart, his hands full of papers, 
which had just been brought to him. I saw him un- 
fold what looked like a large poster, glance at it, 
then suddenly he dashed it to the ground and stamped 
viciously upon it. I heard him give vent to some ex- 
clamations of intense anger, but had I heard nothing 
I could not have failed to know he was desperately an- 
noyed over something, for he was suddenly wrapped 
in a brilliant crimson cloud, through which sharp 
flashes like lightning darted hither and thither. He 
was " seeing red." 

I remember Mrs. Gladstone murmuring something 
about " posters being torn down in Ireland," but I was 
too thrilled over her husband's aura to pay much heed 
to what she said. I shall never forget that scene, and 
the practical disappearance of Mr. Gladstone in the 
enveloping folds of a great red cloud. In a minute or 
two he emerged, and resumed his habitual aura, which 
extended to about two and a half feet beyond his head, 
and was largely tinged w4th purple. 

At Hawarden Church on Sunday, whilst he read the 
lessons, I watched his aura with much interest, be- 
cause it changed so continuously, and I discovered 
that this change arose out of his absorption in what he 
read. Only one little example can I remember to 
illustrate what I mean. " And the heart of Pharaoh 
was hardened and he would not let the people go." 

In reading those words aloud Mr, Gladstone's aura 
deepened to red, and I saw he was very indignant with 
Pharaoh's behavior. During the sermon he sat fac- 
ing us in our pew, and in a chair just beneath the pul- 



AURAS 



295 



pit, and I could tell by watching his aura just how he 
felt about the discourse. 

Later on, just after the tragic murders by the 
Fenians in Phoenix Park of Lord Frederick Cavendish 
and Mr. Bourke, I received a note from Mrs. Glad- 
stone, asking me to go to breakfast with them in their 
London house in Buckingham Gate. When I arrived 
the first person I saw was Lady Frederick Cavendish, 
calm and composed, and bearing her loss with quiet 
stoicism, but the atmosphere of the house was very 
different from that of Hawarden. A gloom was over 
all, and for the first time I noticed that Mr. Glad- 
stone's aura was depressed and tired. Its vigorous 
vibrations had considerably slowed down, like a jet 
of flame that had been turned low, and the extremities 
drooped dejectedly. 

Though crimson red is the color of anger, there is 
a beautiful soft rose which is the color of love. The 
" green-eyed monster " of jealousy history has handed 
down to us from the ancient seers, also the " jaun- 
diced " appearance of envy. A gloomy, grumbling 
person has a very leaden gray atmosphere, and one 
who has " a fit of the blues " shows he is " off color " 
in his dull, muddy blue aura. But there is a beautiful 
sky-blue to be seen in the auras of many artists and 
scientists. Very material, earthly people have gener- 
ally a deep, dull orange tinge in their astral envelope, 
and there is a glorious golden yellow surrounding 
the heads of the spiritually joyful and highly intellec- 
tual. Purple is the color of power, greatness. Chil- 
dren have an aura of crystal whiteness, which develops 
color after the age of seven. 

I remember the aura of Frederic Myers very well. 
A large and intensely spiritual halo. He is the only 



296 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

man I can remember in those days — about '92-'96 — 
as having an aura within an aura, though this phenom- 
enon is now becoming more marked. " A rainbow 
was about his head," those words explain exactly what 
I mean. About a foot above his head circled a pure 
rainbow, and this beautiful decoration looked as if it 
were superimposed upon the original aura, which 
streamed out far above it. I have only as yet, in these 
later years, seen this rainbow above the heads of two 
people: one alive, Miss Maud Roydon, one alas! gone 
west — the incomparable Elsie Inglis. I conclude it 
means a degree of self-sacrificing spirituality, which as 
yet has been attained to by very few. Indeed, I would 
venture further, and assert that it stands for a certain 
initiation conferred upon " the beloved " by the 
Masters of Wisdom. 

King Edward was blessed by a very fine aura of 
constantly changing colors. I remember once noticing 
this in the most unspiritual of environments, and 
whilst the King was still Prince of Wales. 

We were on Newmarket Heath, and His Majesty 
came up to me and said, " I hear you are married." 
After a few minutes of friendly conversation, which 
had taken an amusingly domestic turn, he said to me, 
" Now, how much has your husband got a year? " 

There was nothing in the question but the most 
friendly interest; still, it will naturally seem strange 
that he should have possessed the faintest curiosity as 
to the financial situation of so humble a member of his 
people. 

Whilst he put the question, and waited for the 
answer, his whole aura and atmosphere deepened and 
intensified. He was actually interested in my answer, 



AURAS 297 

and this I have always believed was the fundamental 
reason of his great popularity. The power he pos- 
sessed of throwing himself heart and soul into the 
trivial, as into the great things of life. He was in- 
tensely human, with a genuine fund of sympathy for 
the ordinary affairs of life. He liked to know the do- 
mestic conditions of those whom he honored with his 
friendship, and the first time I ever spoke to him, at a 
dance given by the Rothschilds in Piccadilly, I saw at 
once that the natural human simplicities of life 
absorbed him absolutely whilst under discussion. 
Though a man who would not tolerate a liberty, the 
easiest way to get on with him when alone, was to 
confide in him any personal difficulty, and to forget 
who he was, always providing that one had the good 
breeding to remember instantly that he was the king 
when speaking to him in public. 

The most occult day (to use the popular expression) 
I ever spent was the 26th June, 1902, the day of the 
postponed Coronation. I shall never forget that warm 
summer day of stupendous gloom, and oppressive 
darkness. There was something more than meteor- 
ology in that leaden pall that hid the skies, and en- 
veloped the whole of London. Even the densest ma- 
terialists were uneasy, startled and inquiring, for 
putting aside that mighty aura of sorrow and gloom 
rising up to heaven from the hearts of millions, there 
was, as it were, the response of heaven herself. That 
dark and mournful response Nature assumed, when 
wrapping herself in a shroud of leaden darkness she 
brooded over the city, like the pall of death itself. 
That day the mystic walked in a dream, enmeshed 
in the warp of great occult happenings being woven 



298 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

out in the loom of Karmic fatality. It was impossible 
to settle down to doing anything. One just " sat 
about," living every moment intensely. 

Once, when presenting a girl at Court, during the 
present reign, I noticed what a very striking aura John 
Burns possesses. This girl naturally wished to see all 
she could, so we went to the Palace very early, and 
found a seat in the Throne Room, close to where the 
King and Queen would sit later on. In a short time 
celebrities began to stroll into the royal circles, divided 
from us by a cord. First came the present Lord Grey 
of Falloden, and then came Mr. John Burns, re- 
splendent in dark blue knee breeches and gold-em- 
broidered coat. He moved about quite familiarly in- 
side the holy of holies, speaking first to one, then an- 
other of the gathering little crowd. Being so close 
to him I observed him with unusual interest. His 
aura is very large, and what I can only describe as 
massive, and already it was tinged by the gray veil 
of disappointment. I have seen him several times 
since, and the veil has become more opaque. What in- 
terested me so profoundly in him that night were the 
contrasts I knew to exist in his life, and which must 
have profoundly influenced his outlook on human 
existence. 

One afternoon I was walking alone up Piccadilly. 
There had been rumors of coming riots, but no one 
in the West End gave any credence to such silly stories, 
and the streets were full of the usual gay throng, 
intent on amusement. 

Suddenly, as I walked along, a youth on a bicycle 
dashed past the pavement, shouting something I could 
not catch. More men on bicycles followed. The 
promenaders began to " sit up and take notice." 



AURAS 299 

Carriage horses were being -smartly whipped up, and 
women began to scurry nervously. 

Then it seemed to me I could hear something 
above the roar of the ordinary traffic, a hoarse pro- 
longed shout. Servants now appeared on doorsteps, 
and looked about anxiously for non-existent police- 
men, others began closing outside shutters before 
windows. Just as I reached the Naval and Military 
Club I saw that the servants had come out, and were 
about to close both great gates — " In " and " Out." 
One of these men pointed up the street and advised me 
at once to seek cover, and I saw in the dim distance 
what looked like a mighty crowd advancing. 

In a second I had darted through the gates, and was 
safely inside before they closed upon the approaching 
mob. 

I have only a very confused memory of what hap- 
pened after. Of kindly attentions from the members. 
Of women's shrieks as their carriages were stopped, 
and their valuables taken from them. Of the 
deafening roar of furious male voices, crashings of 
glass windows, howls of savage exultation, as a 
hosier's shop close by fell victim to the rioters, the 
clatter of hoofs from terrified horses. I could see 
nothing, but the battering upon the club gates added 
tenfold to the terrifying din. The members withdrew, 
taking me with them, to the house, and prepared to 
hold it against the furious mob, should the gates give 
way. 

Such wild moments are not easily forgotten, and 
why I looked upon John Burns that night at Court 
with such a peculiar interest was because he led that 
riot, and sufifered imprisonment for so doing. 

Looking upon him in Court dress, in the royal 



300 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

enclosure, on intimate terms with the great of the 
world, though perhaps not the great of the earth, 
knowing him to hold high office in the government, 
I marked the change. Then throwing back my mind 
to those poignant hours in the past, which he had 
created, I felt that nothing is too extraordinary to 
belong to the careers of some men; they live through 
several lives in one. Their Karma is so crowded with 
stirring events, in the working out of the past, in the 
makings of the future, that nothing human can be any 
longer strange to them. The auras of such men are 
naturally great, because such contrasts of light and 
shade only come in the lives of men possessed of great 
and lofty ideals. 

For some years little has been heard of the former 
idol of Battersea. He is facing west now, though a 
ray or two of dawning light may still touch him in the 
near future. That wild idealism which comes to men 
who keep their eyes fixed upon a dawn so long in 
coming, fades out behind the veil of disillusion, as the 
days come not, and the years draw nigh with no 
pleasure in them. Man's ingratitude to man is one 
of the crudest tests imposed upon the soul of idealism. 
The soul that can bear it without a tinge of cynicism 
has risen to mighty heights. 

Such grandeur of soul was possessed by Elsie 
Inglis. So impregnated was she with pure love of 
humanity, that when her own country virtually turned 
its back upon her, this irreparable disgrace, brought 
upon themselves by her own people, cast no shadow 
upon her soul. In the years before the war I often 
noted her lovely aura as I sat amongst an audience, 
and watched her on a platform fighting woman's 
battle. 



AURAS 301 

After the war broke out I only saw her once, by 
the merest chance. It was then I marked that a 
rainbow was now about her head, and I knew at once 
that tremendous events were in store for her, though 
the British Government had refused her services. Ah ! 
the poor little cramped mind of England's officialism! 
yet has not this very poverty of imagination, 
this iron-bound worship of worn-out tradition, 
brought to birth an internationalism which could 
never have been ours without it? It drove forth 
hundreds, thousands of ardent souls, to other lands. 
Rejected by their own, they clasped the pierced hands 
of strangers, and laid down their own incomparably 
gallant lives at the foot of a cross, whereon hung those 
who had at length become their brothers through a 
commune of agony. 

Elsie Inglis received no honor or decoration from 
the people, or the " Great of England." Only the 
body, worn very thin in the service of humanity, was 
at last honored in death. Knowing the woman, and 
the stuff she was made of, one can only feel intensely 
this was all as it should have been. To offer Elsie 
Inglis a medal would have been a sacrilege. " Hands 
off such souls as hers," is the cry one's every instinct 
rings forth to the " bauble worshipers " of this world. 
Besides, and this is a very great besides, those who go 
with a rainbow about their heads are not destined for 
earthly honors. They have taken the great step, they 
have received the great Initiation, a jewel in the blazing 
crown of eternity, and for them no more are the laurel 
wreaths that perish. In justice to those throned on 
high on earth, the above should be remembered. If 
it is with Elsie Inglis, as I fully believe, she would have 
understood that for her God and Mammon were 



302 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

eternally divorced, and any attempt at worldly recog- 
nition would have been frustrated by " The Lords of 
Eternal Light and Wisdom," whose chosen disciple she 
had become. 

The psychology of the people is a very interesting 
and curious study, to the aura seer. The analysis of 
the collective mind awaits some great writer who will 
give us a book of absorbing interest. Those who can 
see auras have a great advantage, if they are public 
speakers. During the period of my life, when I had 
a great deal of political platform work, I was always 
very sensitive to my audiences, because I could see 
how they were taking my remarks. I have always 
found big audiences of the people very colorless in the 
main. Flashes of bright color would be apparent all 
over the hall, but there was no sustained glow. Whilst 
sitting on some one else's platform, often that of a 
great orator, I have marked exactly the same phe- 
nomenon. The soul of the people is still young and 
childlike. It has the indifference of extreme youth, 
the forgetfulness and ingratitude of extreme youth. 

I look back upon the fall of Parnell and Dilke, 
great minds whose earthly careers were destroyed by 
the people. All the world knows why. To-day I look 
on the " perpetrators " of the Gallipoli and Mesopo- 
tamia tragedies, and I see they have all gone up higher 
in the esteem of the people. They have risen in the 
world, and are looked upon as ripe for even higher 
office. The poor human brain reels before such 
anomalies. I was in London when the Gallipoli re- 
ports were given to the public. They shook me to 
the very foundation of my being. I think they were 
given out, to wards the end of the week, because I 
remember saying to myself, " on Sunday morning the 



AURAS 303 

British working man and woman will read all this 
abomination of desolation and crime in their Sunday 
paper." 

Purposely I strolled about the London parks in the 
lovely afternoon of that Sunday. Crov/ds were there, 
reading, courting, sleeping. I went home realizing 
that no one cared. The collective aura of the people 
was as serene and indifferent as ever. 

I have come to think more kindly of our people's 
pathetic indifference, because I am sure it is the in- 
difference of very young souls, who have passed 
through but few incarnations, and " know not what 
they do." I see them exploited by the politicians, 
given a rag doll to amuse themselves with, anything 
will do, from the big loaf to the " Kayzer," and sent 
to the polls hugging their golliwog, but I doubt the 
returning troops being so easily amused and deluded. 

The state of the Universe is the expression of man's 
desire, and man is really the builder of his own body, 
that " house not made with hands," though in his 
youthful ignorance he attributes both to an over- 
ruling intelligence, whom he alternately blesses and 
curses. When men learn that they must work with, 
and not against the mental laws, they will no longer 
ask why God permits the world to be so full of misery. 
They will cease to erect a scapegoat, because they 
will have learned that they are the makers of their 
own misery or happiness. 

Many people seem to think that the power to see 
auras must be very useful in helping one to distinguish 
between friends and foes, but such is not really the case. 
Auras exemplify individual character, not individual 
predilections, and some of my friends being very bad 
characters, indeed, have shocking auras. I had one 



304 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

great friend who, at the beginning of our acquaintance, 
spent much of his time in prison, which was really a 
blessing for his ill-used wife. His aura was literally 
in tatters, just a little irregular circle of rags and 
patches. 

I had just succeeded in making him sober, by in- 
sisting constantly and most seriously that he was 
" a cut above the public-house," and much too superior 
a man to mix with such degraded companions, when 
the war broke out. He went to the front, and on his 
first return to Blighty, badly gassed, he came at once to 
see me. I really felt a sort of personal pride in him, 
and an actual sense of personal possession in his 
enormously grown aura. It was clear evidence of his 
sprouting soul. He went back to France, but was 
wounded and again gassed, and this time his return was 
final, as he was of no further use. 

For a few months he did odd jobs with great 
difficulty, then, finally, he succumbed to pneumonia. I 
was very proud indeed of his aura as I sat beside his 
bed, his hand in mine. There was real love in my 
heart for him that day. Here, indeed, was an infant 
soul that had begun to develop on the right road, and 
the tattered aura of rags and patches had become a 
neatly trimmed little halo round his poor tired head. 

So he went west, and his broken body, wrapped in 
the British flag, went to a soldier's grave, and a firing 
party gave him the Last Post. 

His wife returned home to find that her neighbors, 
anxious to celebrate the occasion, had brought their 
best china and had arranged a tea-party. As we sat 
down, she turned to me and said : 

" Well, thank God, my man's been buried like a 
gentleman." 



AURAS 305 

When I came to think it over I arrived at the 
conclusion that " the worst character in the slums " 
had not done so badly with his life, after all. He had 
died like a gentleman. The British Flag is a strange 
case of transubstantiation. At first, just so many 
pieces of common material sold across a counter. 
Fashioned into the emblem of our Nation it becomes a 
sacred symbol, taken kneeling like a sacrament, which 
indeed it has become. What better shroud could any 
man ask for? 

I am sorry that I have had no opportunity of seeing 
President Wilson's aura, the man who has turned 
his face towards a heavenly ideal, and is scattering 
the seed amongst all the nations. When a man sets 
out on such a long radiant path, he will carry visibly 
in the daylight an illuminated brow. He has brought 
to us the vision without which the people perish. 

The life of the heart has always meant much more 
to me than the life of the head. The rebel by nature 
can only be held by love, and I have been blest by 
twenty-eight years of perfect union with one who has 
given me love for love, faith for faith, and complete 
intellectual understanding. My life has also been 
wonderfully gifted by staunchest friends, who have 
loved me through sunshine and storm, and who 
still clasp hands with me across continents and seas. 
I suppose I must have enemies. They say every 
one has, but they have never made me aware of their 
enmity, perhaps because there is no room in a very 
full heart to receive aught but love. If I were to 
single apart one outstanding feature in my life, it 
would be the wonderful kindness and friendship that 
has been given to me. Ah! how easy that makes it 
to write lovingly of others. 



3o6 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

Behind all this lies the master passion of the born 
mystic for liberation. The constant ache and urge for 
real freedom, and power to be victorious over all cir- 
cumstances. At home in all scenes, restful in all 
fortunes. There is the urge of the soul for universal- 
ity of contact with all humanity, independent of race, 
color or creed. The urge of the spirit to smash the 
confines which pinion it down to earth. 

I think it is really the urge of reincarnating life still 
clinging to me. The knowledge that my immortal 
soul must return to the House of Bondage, until per- 
fection is reached, and there is the going out no more 
from the Father's House, from a freedom which has 
become supreme. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

ADIEU 

TO-DAY there are many, an ever-swelling 
number, who behold with joy the gates ajar, 
who standing in the twilight catch momen- 
tary glimpses of dawn upon the horizon of time, who 
know by personal experience that they have come into 
touch with a region where vast schemes are conceived, 
and universal laws of boundless magnitude connected 
with the soul's eternal pilgrimage are carried out. 

Again, there are others, timid, shrinking souls to 
whom, by a mere chance combination of circumstances, 
a glimpse has been shown which is none too welcome. 
Such affrighted ones drop the eyelids from the startling 
vision. They will have none of it, and they are free to 
accept or reject, go on, or stand still. 

Others, again, have actually been born with that 
super-normal sight which can discern the workings 
behind the drop scene shrouding the stupendous drama 
of cosmic government. 

I have long been conscious that the veil has worn 
very thin between myself and another world lying 
around me. As the years draw swiftly on, and every 
second thrown back into eternity brings me nearer to 
blessed deliverance I find the rents in the veil grow 
more numerous. They bring single shining moments, 
which reveal the spirit of life, its motives and conse- 
cration. 

307 



3o8 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

Through the driving storm wrack there will come 
quite suddenly a brilliant heavenly glimpse. It never 
lasts long, but long enough to show me reality. Some- 
thing of the vastness of cosmos and the pathetic 
minuteness of this earth, just a speck of star dust in 
the palm of God, an atom of world stuff swinging in 
boundless space. 

Something of the reality of those shining ones 
who guide the progression of natural order, embodi- 
ments of resistless energy and of stateliest imperial 
mien. 

Glimpses that show to me what was in the mind 
of the great Christian Mystic when he wrote of a 
mighty angel : " A rainbow was upon his head, and 
his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars 
of fire." 

Behind such visions extend vast ranges of being, 
quite outside my ken, yet, nevertheless, speaking to 
me of things, for the expression of which no words 
have yet been coined. Infinitely greater than any- 
thing that can be said. Significant in meaning 
beyond expression, and far transcending imagina- 
tion. 

Such glimpses show to me lives that as compared 
with ours, are as ours to the tiniest insect afloat for an 
hour on the breath of the south wind. Lives which 
ordain the fateful hour when the rise and fall of em- 
pires, the destruction of nations, and the clash of 
worlds, and their cosmic significance in world history 
shall begin or end. Where things life promised but 
never gave come to full fruition. 

Other glimpses and echoes from the Great Beyond 
bring to me the answer to a problem, a few notes and a 
new melody, a new energy of hope and love, an insj)ira- 



ADIEU 309 

tion from the Great Brotherhood, whose lowliest dis- 
ciple I am, whose work to establish the Brotherhood, 
the true affinity of humanity upon earth I hold most 
dear, most high. 

In the present dark hour all the world is drinking 
of one chalice, its wine the life outpoured for others. 
All humanity is partaking of one bread, a body which 
has most truly and literally being given to be broken. 
Death has left many songs unsung, a myriad graves 
are filled, youth is blighted in the bud, in this white 
winter men call death, and its cup is pressed close to 
the lips of love. Many are the hopes that lie folded 
away in the quiet cemetery of the heart, where we lay 
flowers of tender reminiscence. Yet, this sacrament 
of fellowship which is eclipsed in the awful impoverish- 
ment of human life will one day be swelled by the re- 
turn of the young, fallen on the Field of Honor, glori- 
fied and purified for their God-appointed work in 
evolution. 

Perhaps I have gone a few steps farther than most 
people into the mysterious beyond, come nearer 
reading the great riddle, for the creature who is not 
afraid of thought and worldly condemnation, who is 
not afraid of solitude or ridicule, will soon come near 
the truth, will quickly catch the incommunicable thrill 
of advancing destinies. She will cease to live under 
the despotism of days, the tyranny of years. She will 
know that the swiftest touch cannot put a finger on 
the present, and that there is but one recorder of time, 
the great star clock of the sky. 

The symbol of life is the Circle, not the Straight line, 
and each of us lives over again the story of humanity, 
as in the shadow of pre-natal gloom we repeat the 
physical evolution of the rac^, The increase of knowl- 



310 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

edge but widens the horizon of the unknown promised 
land, to which we are moving onward and upward 
throughout the ages. 

However far the mind travels there is always deep 
down in the soul stores of information awaiting trans- 
ference to the surface of consciousness. Rich mines 
of knowledge are there awaiting the day when they will 
be uncovered, waiting in patience the day when some 
Divine Adventurer will search for them and bring 
them to light. 

However great its aspirations the soul but looks out 
upon an illimitable horizon, and sees . the human 
pilgrimage as a long Emmasus walk, with hearts 
burning by the way. Always must there be mystery 
in life, because life is spiritual, not material. The 
presence of mystery in life is the presence of God, and 
the infinity of God shows that mystery must always 
exist. 

Such glimpses beyond the veil are all transfiguring. 
They exalt the heart in .a single flash to a glow point, 
and show the soul of the Universe in the incandescent 
crucible of the eternal. In a deeply beshadowed time 
such visions tell us all that we need know, and it is 
this : God is with us and in us. Though obscure for 
the moment His transcendence stands outside the 
change and flux of time, and His awful sovereignty 
sways irresistibly the tides of human circumstances. 

Hours must come when the pen falls from the 
nerveless fingers, the task is left undone, when the 
weary cry goes up, " There is nothing we can do ! " 
We have been doing for so many thousand years, the 
years which the locusts hath eaten. What have we 
achieved ? 



ADIEU 311 

When such hours come, as come they must, is there 
nothing to fall back upon but this awful confession of 
failure, this haunting undertone of all our mortal life 
that many ages have not hushed ? 

Surely, yes! There is always for the mystic the 
unmeasured immensity of soul land to explore, that 
Great Beyond and within which is infinite, eternal, and 
of which we are all a part. 

Ah! but it may be said, all are not mystics, to 
which I would reply, all who desire can be mystics. 
For what, after all, is a mystic, but one who enters into 
possession of the inner life? One who becomes fully 
aware of her self-consciousness, and who gains thereby 
new faculties and enlightenment. It places her in 
touch with that supreme reality which some call God 
and some The Great Creative Power. The inystic 
knows that power is to be found within through identi- 
fication and submergence with the Primordial Force 
which constitutes the ocean of life. She can always 
pass the sky and clouds of earth, and enter the great, 
deep, real world outside. It is always possible to her 
to seek a fairer world where the only things that matter 
are the eternal verities, which should be taken kneel- 
ing, like a sacrament. 

Love and life which is Beauty. 
Love and power which is Goodness. 
Love and knowledge which is Wisdom. 

The Road of the Flaming Sacred Heart is strewn 
with insight, kindness and sympathy, which gives eyes 
to the blind, ears to the deaf, and a voice to the dumb ! 
It is paved with love that serves the humble and de- 
fends the disinherited. Bravely it walks the Via Dolo- 



312 GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN 

rosa, and it " Beareth all things, believeth all things, 
hopeth all things, its reward to know the love of God, 
unutterable even to them that know." 

The Mystic can face the future without fear, for 
the power has been given her to take her soul, and like 
a carrier dove loose it into space, to speed away into 
the fathomless, the everlasting, the voiceless deep 
whose silence is the " Welcome Home "of God. 



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